Witness Leads To Conversion
Simply living out our daily lives with Gospel values, without any explicit sharing of the Gospel, can lead people to God and the Church.
Key Insights
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Witness Breeds Curiosity
The earliest Christians lived their lives so differently that their contemporaries took notice and sought them out to learn more. This happens today, as well, when we live as authentic disciples. |
Authenticity
People are more likely to listen to a Christian who “walks the walk,” rather than one who just “talks the talk.” In order to effectively share our faith, we must first by our values we preach. |
Inviting Openness
When others experience the Christian way of life through us, it opens and prepares them to change their lives and encounter Christ themselves. |
Quotations
Through this wordless witness these Christians stir up irresistible questions in the hearts of those who see how they live: Why are they like this? Why do they live in this way? What or who is it that inspires them? Why are they in our midst? There are innumerable opportunities open to the laity for the exercise of their apostolate of evangelization and sanctification. The very testimony of their Christian life and good works done in a supernatural spirit have the power to draw men to belief and to God; for the Lord says, "Even so let your light shine before men in order that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven" (Matt. 5:16). Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity, 6
(Apostolicam Actuositatem) Second Vatican Council Emphasis added The faithful become agents of evangelization through living witness and commitment to the Gospel. The everyday moments of one’s life lived with Christian charity, faith, and hope provide witness to family members, friends, neighbors, colleagues, and others who have stopped actively participating in the life of the Church. This witness is essential for reaching others in today’s modern world. Disciples Called to Witness: The New Evangelization
Committee on Evangelization and Catechesis, USCCB One’s interaction with a Christian who lives an authentic gospel life leads to questioning about how to better appropriate the faith into one’s own life. Disciples Called to Witness: The New Evangelization
Committee on Evangelization and Catechesis, USCCB |
The laity fulfill this mission of the Church in the world especially by conforming their lives to their faith so that they become the light of the world as well as by practicing honesty in all their dealings so that they attract all to the love of the true and the good and finally to the Church and to Christ. They fulfill their mission also by fraternal charity which presses them to share in the living conditions, labors, sorrows, and aspirations of their brethren with the result that the hearts of all about them are quietly prepared for the workings of saving grace. Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity, 13
(Apostolicam Actuositatem) Second Vatican Council Emphasis added ...for the Church, the first means of evangelization is the witness of an authentically Christian life, given over to God in a communion that nothing should destroy and at the same time given to one's neighbor with limitless zeal. As we said recently to a group of lay people, "Modern man listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers, and if he does listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses." St. Peter expressed this well when he held up the example of a reverent and chaste life that wins over even without a word those who refuse to obey the word. It is therefore primarily by her conduct and by her life that the Church will evangelize the world, in other words, by her living witness of fidelity to the Lord Jesus- the witness of poverty and detachment, of freedom in the face of the powers of this world, in short, the witness of sanctity. 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. Disciples Called to Witness: The New Evangelization
Committee on Evangelization and Catechesis, USCCB It is often said nowadays that the present century thirsts for authenticity. Especially in regard to young people it is said that they have a horror of the artificial or false and that they are searching above all for truth and honesty. |