Our Call to work and Evangelize comes from God!

Our Call to Work and Evangelize, comes from God!

Have you heard the whisper that moved Elijah on the mountain to get back to his mission?  The same voice that is unmistakable is constantly breathing in your heart to wake you up from sleep and hit the floor running.   There is a world that is in need of your efforts to change the spiraling direction people are falling into without words from God, through each of us.  

Recently I saw a news item where an overwhelming number of men are seeking acceptance to the priesthood in Asia.  This is heartening and probably resembles America in the 1930’s and beyond.  My former pastor explained that after ordination many newly ordained priests were sent home because there was no room for their services.  How things have changed and the people in the pews have become the recipients of a drifting Church with so few priests to minister to them.

We cannot reach these souls through osmosis and what saints did and said in their days of ministry.  It is a never-ending requirement for those who have been saved through the teaching of Christ to continue this mandate to continue the demand from God.  When God told Adam to become fruitful and multiply did not just mean to procreate, but to expand all he gave to him and his progeny to follow.  God blessed them saying, “Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it.  Have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and all living things that move on the earth.”  (Gn 1: 28).  

Catechesis on creation is of major importance.  It concerns the very foundations of human and Christian life: for it makes explicit the response of the Christian faith to the basic question that men of all times have asked themselves; “Where do we come from?  Where are we going?  What is our origin?  What is our end?  Where does everything that exists come from and where is it going?”  The two questions, the first about the origin and the second about the end, are inseparable.  They are decisive for the meaning and orientation of our life and actions.  (CCC 282).

With creation, God does not abandon his creatures to themselves.  He not only gives them being and existence, but also, and at every moment, upholds and sustains them in being, enables them to act and brings them to their final end.  Recognizing this utter dependence with respect to the Creator is a source of wisdom and freedom, of joy and confidence:  (CCC 301).

For you love all things that exist, and detest none of the things that you have made; for you would not have made anything if you had hated it.  How would anything have endured, if you had not willed it?  Or how would anything not called forth by you have been preserved?  You spare all things, for they are yours, O Lord, you who love the living.  (taken from Wis 11: 24 - 26)

Preachers, writers, musicians, and all who create through their giftedness, are mandated to evangelize using their talents to reach the unlearned or those whose faith is questionable.   It is a requirement that we who have these gifts put them into the world for someone to absorb.

In the past I have written more than once promoting the desire of at least one reader who may be too timid to write for the first time.  Don’t believe that!  You may not have Post-nominal initials indicating an achievement in speaking, writing, or another accomplishment.   That may invigorate your ego but not your ability and giftedness.  When God calls anyone to enter a vocation of speaking for him, he doesn’t look at the initials after your name, he looks at what you can become through the Holy Spirit.

Before I was ordained and became a homilist for a number of years, I made a comment that I wanted to tell people about Jesus.  For over 24 years while active as a deacon I preached almost every Sunday without ever writing a homily.  I didn’t preach using ad-lib.  I spent the week prior by reading the scriptures and praying about the theme to be presented.  It was the Holy Spirit who assisted my talents.  Point here is if God has called you or at least placed an inspiration in your mind, follow it.   You needn't become the best writer, but remember there might be one person whom God has guided to your words that no one else would be able to entice their desire to know God, or seek his grace.

Remember Jerimiah:  “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I dedicated you, a prophet to the nations I appointed you.  Ah Lord!  I said, I know not how to speak:  I am too young.”  (Jer 1: 5 - 6).  What if he would have rejected God’s Call?

Ralph B. Hathaway