The feast celebrating Saint Paul’s shipwreck on our shores is a strong invitation for us Maltese to reflect deeply on whether we are seriously heeding and passionately undertaking his ardent desire to make Christ known to those around us. For Saint Paul to proclaim Christ was purely a direct calling from the Lord himself. In fact, he himself admitted: “Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!” (1 Cor 9, 16).
The core of Saint Paul’s message was simply Jesus Christ “crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called both Jews and Greeks, Christ [is] the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor 1, 23-24). He fully recognised the problems such a proclamation would pose for him. He knew perfectly well that certain people would judge him and portray him as a fool and simpleton. Yet, the irresistible power of his Lord kept him going on.
Further down he confesses: “For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. … God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong, God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, whom God made our wisdom, our righteousness and sanctification and redemption; therefore, as it is written, ‘Let him who boasts, boast of the Lord’” (1 Cor 1, 25. 27-31).
Similarly, the basic content of the new evangelisation should be Jesus Christ. In fact, Pope Paul VI in his famous encyclical Evangelii Nuntiandi affirmed that “evangelisation will also always contain – as the foundation, centre, and at the same time, summit of its dynamism – a clear proclamation that, in Jesus Christ, the Son of God made man, who died and rose from the dead, salvation is offered to all men, as a gift of God’s grace and mercy” (§ 27).
Obviously, the new evangelisation is the retrieval and the bearing witness of the personal, unique and eloquent encounter with the Redeemer of man in front of the world. This experiential Christ-centric approach was Saint Paul’s way of disseminating the Good News of salvation. When facing the sophisticated Hellenistic culture of his time, the Apostle of the Gentiles offered his living testimony of Jesus with simple yet spirit-led words! “When I came to you, brethren, I did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God in lofty words or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in much fear and trembling; and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God” (1 Cor 2, 1-5). Likewise, Blessed John Paul II used to say: “The new evangelisation is not a matter of merely passing on doctrine but rather of a personal and profound meeting with the Saviour.”
The Christian vocation is essentially a missionary one. Jesus’ words are still valid for every baptized person. “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age” (Matt 28, 18-20). In the same manner, Pope Benedict XVI augured that “the baptized in their sense of mission, through prayer, the witness of life and Christian commitment in all its forms … may become missionaries in the places where they live and that vocations will come forth to proclaim the Gospel to men who do not yet know it”.
Are we not “all one in Christ Jesus”? (Gal 3, 28). It’s time to make Him known collectively to others by following in Saint Paul’s footsteps!
Mario Attard OFM Cap
SAN GWANN