Through baptism you are called to embrace Jesus as the way, the truth, the life, and the purpose behind all of your actions. And through the Holy Spirit, you have been strengthened to live out this baptismal calling in simple but dynamic ways. So stop and invite the Holy Spirit to come and stir up the waters of your baptism. These living waters are not meant to stagnate.
Baptism is an ongoing reality that empowers you to acknowledge Jesus in your everyday world as your Shepherd, Emmanuel, Brother, Lord, Teacher, and Redeemer, especially in ways that bring others to Jesus. Pope Benedict XVI pointed out, “The proclamation of and witness to the Gospel are the first service that Christians can render to every person and to the entire human race, called as they are to communicate to all God’s love, which was fully manifested in Jesus Christ, the one Redeemer of the world.” Excerpt from Sharing the Faith That You Love
Updated BLOG: Pope Saint Paul VI, the Man Who Launched a Billion Evangelizers
1975 headline: BRAND NEW, CATHOLIC document on EVANGELIZATION is released. We were so excited! It was an unprecedented rallying cry to live a life of missionary faith, especially by sharing the Good News of Jesus, Christ. Since then, On Evangelization in the Modern World, by Pope St. Paul VI has been referred to as the final document of Vatican Council II.
It has been read and studied by thousands! So it is no exaggeration to say that Pope Saint Paul VI is the man who launched a billion Catholic evangelizers, filled with new zeal for sharing the Gospel. Its wisdom begs another look today also, another effort to bring the whole world to the foot of the Cross and into the Kingdom of God.
One of our favorite quotes is: “The task of evangelizing all people constitutes the essential mission of the Church. It is a task and mission which the vast and profound changes of present-day society make all the more urgent. Evangelizing is in fact the grace and vocation proper to the Church, her deepest identity. She exists in order to evangelize.”
Update
On Oct. 19, 2014, a miracle was approved involving an unborn child in the 1990s in California, with serious health problem that could easily lead to brain damage… Instead of an abortion the mother prayed for Paul VI’s intercession, using a fragment of the pope’s vestments that a friend had given her. And so the child was healed and the Good News of God’s love was underlined once more.
On October 14, 2018, Pope St. Paul VI was canonized. Perhaps one of his greatest tributes lies in the words of Pope Francis, who Called Paul VI, a man who “knew how to witness, in difficult years, to the faith [the mercy, the healing and the missionary zeal that we can find] in Jesus Christ.”