Come and follow me

I recently engaged in an internet discussion with a very nice lady who has shown some rudimentary interest in the Catholic faith. I don't yet know enough about her, other than just a little about her personal faith background, to know how best I might help her in her faith journey or whether I am the one to help at all. The exchange has gotten me to thinking, however, of the importance of our lives acting as witnesses to call others to Jesus Christ, who would call all people to himself.

Pope Francis has said in a recent homily that without evangelization, the Church doesn't act as our Mother, but as "a babysitter." The Holy Father said that when we evangelize others “the Church becomes a mother church that produces children (and more) children, because we, the children of the Church, we carry that. But when we do not, the Church is not the mother, but the babysitter, that takes care of the baby – to put the baby to sleep. It is a Church dormant." Pope Francis called on all Catholics “to proclaim Christ, to carry the Church – this fruitful motherhood of the Church – forward." The Holy Father's call echos the very words of Jesus when he told the Apostles in Matthew 28:19-20:

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.”

The Holy Father also pointed out that the very first believers in the book of Acts had only recently been baptized, but had the courage to go out and proclaim the Gospel to others. Certainly we aren't called to do any less than the first Christians. What we cannot do with any effectiveness is to be witnesses "in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth (Acts 1:9)” without our lives reflecting that which we proclaim and being the primary witness to the faith we profess.



My internet conversation with someone interested in our faith got me thinking seriously about how the words and actions that I use around others reflect on the faith that I profess with my lips. We are called to issue the same summons that Jesus did, to encourage others to follow him.

Are we really doing that?