The Holy Father’s address on February 18 to the Filipino bishops making their ad limina visit contained the following comment:
When self-sufficiency and freedom are severed from their dependence upon and completion in God, the human person creates for himself a false destiny and loses sight of the eternal joy for which he has been made. The path to rediscovering humanity’s true destiny can only be found in the re-establishment of the priority of God in the heart and mind of every person. Above all, to keep God at the center of the life of the faithful, the preaching of you and your clergy must be personal in its focus so that each Catholic will grasp in his or her innermost depths the life-transforming fact that God exists, that he loves us, and that in Christ he answers the deepest questions of our lives. Your great task in evangelization is therefore to propose a personal relationship with Christ as key to complete fulfillment.”
Wow! Listen up deacons! Our preaching must be personal, affirming the existence of God and his love for us, and Jesus as the answer to our deepest questions.
The task of evangelization is to propose a personal relationship with Christ, the key to all fulfillment.
Deacons, let us take our preaching seriously, and proclaim boldly as our Holy Father mandates us to do, as each of our bishops on the day of our ordination sent us forth to do: Be Heralds of the Gospel of Christ!
