VERBUM MUNDO
The Word from the Father and to the Father (90 onwards)
• We cannot keep to ourselves the word of eternal life given to us in our encounter with Jesus Christ: they are meant for every one... Everyone today, whether he or she knows it or not, needs this message. It is our responsibility to pass on what, by God's grace, we ourselves have received (apostolate)
• The First Christians saw their missionary preaching as a necessity rooted in the very nature of faith
• Many of our brothers and sisters are baptized but insufficiently evangezed.
• The need for a new evangelization must be valiantly reaffirmed in the certainty that God's word is effective.
• In no way can the Church restrict her pastoral work to the "ordinary maintenance" of those who already know the Gospel of Christ. Missionary outreach is a clear sign of the maturity of an ecclesial community (apostolate ad fideam)
• The word of God is the saving truth everybody wants to hear
• On the one hand the word must communicate everything the Lord himself has told us. On the other hand, it is indispensable, through witness, to make this word credible, lest it appear merely as a beautiful philosophy or utopia, rather than a reality that can be lived and itself give life (apostolate)
• Young people need to be introduced to the word of God "through encounter and authentic witness by adults, through the positive influence of friends and the gat company of the ecclesial community"
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