Catholics around the world must embrace the idea of becoming evangelists of the faith, author and theologian George Weigel told members of the Assembly of Catholic Professionals during their meeting in February.
Weigel, author of the seminal biography of Pope Saint John Paul II, “Witness to Hope,” and its sequel, “The End of the Beginning,” told attendees, “We’re living in the fifth major transitional moment in the Church’s history – what John Paul II called the Church of the New Evangelization.”
“The faith has to be actively proposed,” Weigel said. “Friendship with the Lord has to be actively offered. And each one of us has to take responsibilities for that.”
Weigel classified the previous four transitional moments as the early Church, which was centered on the proclamation “Jesus is Lord;” patristic Christianity, which saw that proclamation converted into creed and doctrine; Medieval Christendom, which produced “the closest synthesis that’s perhaps ever been created between culture, society and Church;” and counterreformation Catholicism, which spawned the institutionally centered Church familiar to us today.
Weigel noted that Pope John XXIII, ahead of the Second Vatican Council, described the council’s mission in one word: evangelization.
Pope Saint John Paul II and his successor, Pope Benedict XVI, Weigel said, summed up Vatican II this way: The Church doesn’t have a mission, it is a mission. Thus, everyone is a missionary, and everywhere is mission territory.
“John Paul II insisted … that lay people are particularly well equipped and in fact particularly charged with being the Church’s missionaries in the fields of politics, economics, culture,” Weigel told ACP members and guests.
“That’s why an association like this is so important -- it helps equip you to be those missionary disciples. It helps you support each other in doing that because it’s not an easy thing these days.”
Weigel said that despite the challenges, the work of evangelization can be exhilarating.
“There is really nothing finer in this world than bringing others to meet the Lord Jesus,” he said. “Whether that’s within the family or within our professional circles or among our friends, that is the challenge that this moment lays before us.”
The Assembly of Catholic Professionals meets quarterly at the Petroleum Club. Meetings include networking, lunch and remarks from guest speakers. The theme of this year’s ACP luncheons is “Building Tomorrow: Empowering Catholic Professionals for Evangelization.”
To view George Weigel’s speech or for more information, visit cfook.org/acp or call (405) 709-2745.
Photo: (above) Author and theologian George Weigel spoke to members of the Assembly of Catholic Professionals during their meeting on Feb. 15 in Oklahoma City. Photo Avery Holt.