Vol. 4, No. 3, July, 1999

Handing on the Good News
by Sr. Angeline Bukowiecki, S.N.C.

What I want to do is stress the importance of knowing the Word of God so well that it is an integral part of the evangelizer.

The Word of God

In Luke 24:45-49, we are told:

Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and said to them, "Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you; but, stay in the city, until you are clothed with power from on high."

And in Acts 2:38, Peter said to them:

"Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall. receive the gift of the Holy Spirit."

Is this the proclamation? Is this the Good News? And if it is not, then what is the proclamation?

From my experience, I have discovered that it is the Word of God that touches the hearts of people. Human wisdom is not going to convert anyone. As Pope Paul VI says: We evangelize when we seek to convert solely by the power of the word we proclaim (E.N. #18). And we have seen this to be so true.

Once people have been given the skills for proclamation, we ask them to demonstrate those skills in a role-play. And we have discovered that the most powerful evangelization comes from those who use the Word of God with great skill. As you watch the role?play, you find yourself being touched by the Word.

The Word of God is the vehicle the Holy Spirit uses to bring about conversion. When people use too many words of their own in trying to evangelize ?? using human wisdom only -- their evangelizing efforts goes nowhere. Human wisdom does not convert anyone. St. Paul states this so well in 1 Corinthians 1:22-25.

"For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles . . . For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men."

What I understand that to be saying is this: when we try to evangelize people using only human wisdom, it is not going to go very far. But, when we preach the Gospel -- use the very Word of God itself -- the Scriptures -- then the Holy Spirit is able to touch hearts and people are converted. So over the years, as we have given leadership training in ACTS II, we've seen the importance of equipping our Catholic people in how to use the Word of God skillfully in their evangelizing efforts. Good advice is not what people need to hear but the Good News of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is the Scriptures that do that for them, not human wisdom. Any training in evangelization must equip people in how to use the Word of God with skill and with humility. The Word of God is the turf of the Holy Spirit. It is on that turf that the Holy Spirit can touch the heart of the person being evangelized.

When the evangelizer begins to use the Word of God with skill ?? is able to move around in the Scriptures and knows which Scripture to use -- people's hearts are touched. And in the training, people have commented on that. They are so amazed at how much the Word of God touches them when the Word of God is used with great skill.

An example that comes to my mind are the priests who came to the ACTS II Leadership Training that we gave in Nigeria in Issele-Uku in the fall of 1991. At one point in the training, they were sent out to do an evangelization rally. Into the marketplace they went, into the streets where they preached from a platform and then mingled among the people. When they came back, one of the older priests said: "Sister, thank you so much! The power of the Word of God! It really works!"

A good analogy that might be given here comes from the medical field. I come from a medical background. Think for a moment about a surgeon. He is in the operating room and the nurse is there to assist him. The role of the nurse is to know which instruments he will need for the surgery and then to give each one of them to him when he asks for it. No questions are asked but instead strict obedience is given in responding to what is being asked for: "Scalpel!" And it is placed in his hand. "Forceps!" And it is placed in his hand. The surgeon is the expert and he knows exactly what instrument he needs next. The nurse must be obedient to him.

In the same way, each one of us is to be obedient to the Holy Spirit. We need to know the Word of God so well that when a Scripture passage is called for by the Holy Spirit we can give it. And the job of conversion is done by Him. Strict obedience to what the Holy Spirit is asking for is what we need to be about. This implies that we are giving one ear to the person being evangelized and the other ear to the Holy Spirit, the expert in the surgery he is performing.

The role of the evangelizer is to know how to interact with the person being evangelized. He/she must have good listening skills, know how to ask good questions, have a good personal testimony which enfleshes the proclamation, but is not a substitute for it. But that is not all there is to proclamation. The evangelizer must know how to use the Word of God, how to interact with the person being evangelized by using the Word of God and sharing one's experience of that Word.

In Poland, a few years ago, a wonderful example of this was given by one of the seminarians. Of course, he had a good background in the Word of God. And it was amazing how he was able to use the Word of God, in view of the skills we gave him, with the person he was trying to evangelize. And he did it very calmly, very gently, and everyone was confirmed in the realization that you must know the Word of God very well in order to move from passage to passage. It is not simply a recitation of Scripture passages. It is the interplay of being able to talk about that Word as well.

The evangelizer cannot simply go out and evangelize by telling stories. The story enters in with one's personal testimony but the Word of God must be proclaimed just as it is given in the Scriptures. Then it is enfleshed by one's experience of that Word and being able to talk about that Word. Knowing how to bring them together is crucial.

In Conclusion

What is essential to the proclamation of the Good News is the direct use of the Scriptures themselves. Once a person is initially evangelized, that person experiences ongoing evangelization in a small group under the direction of a well trained pastoral leader.

The first step, then, is conversion, the Holy Spirit touching persons being evangelized with the experiential realization that they are personally loved by God; and that they are sinners in need of Jesus Christ, who has come for them personally, for the forgiveness of their sins; and to gift them with the Holy Spirit and power.

Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and said to them, "Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you; but, stay in the city, until you are clothed with power from on high" (Luke 24:45?49)

Then Peter said to them:

"Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit" (Acts 2:38).