“How often do we fail to realize that we are called to be Christ’s witnesses to the world?”
The bishops put this question to us in the new document by the USCCB, Disciples Called to Witness: The New Evangelization. We are called to be Christ’s witnesses. If we don’t do it, who will? As St. Teresa of Avila said,
“Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
compassion on this world.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.”
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
compassion on this world.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.”
Why is it that we aren’t better witnesses of Christ? What holds us back from letting the world know the Good News of the Gospel by being who we are? Do we realize that how we act, what we say, and who we are is a witness to something, even if it’s not intentional? What are we witnessing to? Why is being a witness so important?
In the document Disciples Called to Witness, the bishops go on to say, “The witness of Christians, whose lives are filled with the hope of Christ, opens the hearts and minds of those around them to Christ. This openness to Christ is a moment of conversion (metanoia). It is the moment in which a person’s life is reoriented to Christ, when he or she—by grace—enters into a relationship with him and thus enters into a relationship with the community of believers, the Church. “The purpose of this [new] evangelization is to bring about faith and conversion to Christ. Faith involves a profound change of mind and heart, a change of life, a ‘metanoia.’”
In the book A Severe Mercy, Sheldon Vanauken shares the story of his conversion to Christianity. On the way, he realizes the great influence that Christians have in their witness to the hope that is in them, and still yet their influence when they do not witness to this hope, or do not realize the treasure that they hold. He says, “The best argument for Christianity is Christians: their joy, their certainty, their completeness. But the strongest argument against Christianity is also Christians--when they are sombre and joyless, when they are self-righteous and smug in complacent consecration, when they are narrow and repressive, then Christianity dies a thousand deaths.”
How can be witnesses of hope, joy, certainty and completeness in our world today? As Catherine pointed out in our “What the World Needs” post, the world does not need what we have, it needs what we are. It needs our hope and our joy as witnesses of Christ. Only in this manner can we hope to “[welcome] back to the Lord’s Table all those who are absent, because they are greatly missed and needed to build up the Body of Christ?” (Disciples Called to Witness)
As we continue in this Easter season, this season of hope, let us “…reverence Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to make a defense to any one who calls you to account for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and reverence.” (1 Peter 3:15)
Written by Kristen
