We can say that the centrality of God in our lives is at the very heart of the question of the new evangelization. An old scholastic Latin adage states: operari sequitur esse. This can be translated as: our actions express our very being. Thus, as the great saints teach us, the primary concern for all of us is that of truly being Christians. Saint Ignatius of Antioch, while en route to Rome to face his martyrdom, wrote to those in the Eternal City: “Pray that I might not only bear the title of a Christian, but that I might also truly be one”.
At the roots of evangelization is one’s very being, not the modes of proclamation, nor the methods, nor the technical means of communication nor the choice of language. Certainly, these are not matters of little importance, but they cannot constitute the starting point. We must begin with who we are: with being a Christian, and with being the Church. In fact, using the term “new evangelization” should invoke in us a renewed way of being a Christian: one who is concern with finding sound environments which nurture authentic Christians who possess a unity between their faith and their actions; a renewed way of being Church: capable of bearing witness to the beauty of being a Christian. Thus we should not be seeking a magic formula that will attract the men and women of our time, but the awareness that all this begins with ourselves, with our very way of being disciples of Christ.
