sharingourfaith

 

​Sharing what we have come to know and experience about the way that our God desires to relate to each of us is the true source for why we are called to share our faith with others. It is about sharing the relationship of love with those that we meet on the daily journey of our lives. It is a matter of telling (proclamation), but it is more importantly a matter of showing (witness) the impact that our relationship with God has on the way we live our lives.

We share our faith in the context of relationship, through taking the time to know and to accompany others on their own journey, meeting them where they are and walking with them, moving a step at a time to bring them to an encounter with Jesus just as we ourselves have an ongoing encounter of his love in our lives.

Sharing our faith individually and as parish communities is about engaging in a "culture of witness" that invites others in to experience the way in which, through the power of the Holy Spirit, God moves us individually and as communities to live as Jesus lived, to serve as he served, and to show the love of God, the Father, to the world in which we live.

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"The primary reason for evangelizing is the love of Jesus, which we have received, the experience of salvation, which urges us to ever greater love of him. What kind of love would not feel the need to speak to the beloved, to point him out, to make him known? If we do not feel an intense desire to share this love, we need to pray insistently that he will once more touch our hearts. We need to implore his grace daily, asking him to open our cold hearts and shake up our lukewarm and superficial existence... . How good it is to stand before a crucifix, or on our knees before the Blessed Sacrament, and simply to be in h​​is presence! How much good it does us when He once more touches our lives and impels us to share His new life! What happens is that 'we speak of what we have seen and heard (1 Jn 1:3).' The best incentive for sharing the Gospel comes from contemplating it with love, lingering over its pages and reading it with the heart." - The Joy of the Gospel, Pope Francis, #264, 2013 ​