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“The Church is called to be the house of the Father, with doors always wide open. One concrete sign of such openness is that our church doors should always be open, so that if someone, moved by the Spirit, comes there looking for God, he or she will not find a closed door. There are other doors that should not be closed either. Everyone can share in some way in the life of the Church; everyone can be part of the community, nor should the doors of the sacraments be closed for simply any reason. This is especially true of the sacrament which is itself ‘the door’: baptism. The Eucharist, although it is the fullness of sacramental life, is not a prize for the perfect but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak. These convictions have pastoral consequences that we are called to consider with prudence and boldness. Frequently, we act as arbiters of grace rather than its facilitators. But the Church is not a tollhouse; it is the house of the Father, where there is a place for everyone with all their burdened lives.”


Major Themes in Evangelii Gaudium (Joy of the Gospel),
Pope Francis' First Apostolic Exhortation (Nov 24th 2013)


No 1. The Basic Proclamation of the Gospel (Kerygma)

For Pope Francis, evangelization begins by sharing the basic message of the Gospel.
“In catechesis too, we have rediscovered the fundamental role of the first announcement or the Proclamation of the Gospel, which needs to be the center of all evangelizing activity and all efforts at Church renewal… On the lips of the catechist the first proclamation must ring out over and over: “Jesus Christ loves you; he gave his life to save you; and now he is living at your side every day to enlighten, strengthen and free you” (#164).
The Pope goes on to note the importance of the Proclamation of the Gospel throughout the life of a Christian:
“It is first in a qualitative sense because it is the principal proclamation, the one which we must hear again and again in different ways, the one which we must announce one way or another throughout the process of catechesis, at every level and moment” (#164).
In his letter, the Pope practices what he writes:
“I invite all Christians, everywhere, at this very moment, to a renewed personal encounter with Jesus Christ, or at least an openness to letting him encounter them; I ask all of you to do this unfailingly each day. No one should think that this invitation is not meant for him or her, since ‹‹no one is excluded from the joy brought by the Lord››” (#3). [Pope Francis quotes Pope Paul VI, Gaudete in Domino, 1975]

No 2. Two Sources of Evangelization

First, we can evangelize only because God first loved us.
“An evangelizing community knows that the Lord has taken the initiative, he has loved us first (cf. 1 Jn 4:19), and therefore we can move forward, boldly take the initiative, go out to others, seek those who have fallen away, stand at the crossroads and welcome the outcast. (#24)
Second, our evangelization depends on theme number 1: Our ability to accept the Gospel into our lives.
“Here we find the source and inspiration of all our efforts at evangelization. For if we have received the love which restores meaning to our lives, how can we fail to share that love with others?” (#8)
“Jesus can also break through the dull categories with which we would enclose him and he constantly amazes us by his divine creativity. Whenever we make the effort to return to the source and to recover the original freshness of the Gospel, new avenues arise, new paths of creativity open up, with different forms of expression, more eloquent signs and words with new meaning for today’s world. Every form of authentic evangelization is always ‹‹new››”. (#11)

No 3. Missionary Disciple

The term “missionary disciple” is used throughout the document. The two terms are used to hold in tension the need both for a relationship with our Lord and the need to go to the outskirts to preach the Gospel. One thing is very clear. Every Baptized member of the Christian faith is called to evangelize and is called to be a missionary disciple.
“In virtue of their baptism, all the members of the People of God have become missionary disciples (cf. Mt 28:19). All the baptized, whatever their position in the Church or their level of instruction in the faith, are agents of evangelization.” (#120)
“What I would like to propose is something much more in the line of an evangelical discernment. It is the approach of a missionary disciple, an approach ‹‹nourished by the light and strength of the Holy Spirit››” (#50). [Pope Francis quotes Pope John Paul II, Pastores dabo vobis, 1992]
“The Church is herself a missionary disciple” (#40).
“A Church which ‹‹goes forth››, which is ‹‹on the move››, is a Church whose doors are open… At times we have to be like the father of the prodigal son, who always keeps his door open so that when the son returns, he can readily pass through it. (#46)


No 4. The Parish

Pope Francis spends a considerable amount of time on the parish as he looks to see how a missionary impulse would change parish life.
“In all its activities the parish encourages and trains its members to be evangelizers. It is a community of communities, a sanctuary where the thirsty come to drink in the midst of their journey, and a centre of constant missionary outreach. We must admit, though, that the call to review and renew our parishes has not yet sufficed to bring them nearer to people, to make them environments of living communion and participation, and to make them completely mission-oriented” (#28)
“In some people we see an ostentatious preoccupation for the liturgy, for doctrine and for the Church’s prestige, but without any concern that the Gospel have a real impact on God’s faithful people and the concrete needs of the present time” (#95).
Then in regards to sharing the message of the Gospel:
“Pastoral ministry in a missionary style is not obsessed with the disjointed transmission of a multitude of doctrines to be insistently imposed…the message has to concentrate on the essentials, on what is most beautiful, most grand, most appealing and at the same time most necessary. The message is simplified, while losing none of its depth and truth, and thus becomes all the more forceful and convincing.” (#35).

No. 5 The Poor

We all know that Pope Francis wants “a Church which is poor and for the poor.” The poor take up a huge section in this Apostolic Exhortation and his words deserve to be closely examined. Here are some significant quotes to help sum up his thoughts:
We know that “evangelization would not be complete if it did not take account of the unceasing interplay of the Gospel and of man’s concrete life, both personal and social” (#181). [Here, Pope Francis quotes Pope Paul VI, Evangelii Nuntiandi, 1975]
“Each individual Christian and every community is called to be an instrument of God for the liberation and promotion of the poor, and for enabling them to be fully a part of society” (#187).
“Inspired by this, the Church has made an option for the poor which is understood as a ‹‹special form of primacy in the exercise of Christian charity, to which the whole tradition of the Church bears witness››” (#198). [Here, Pope Francis quotes Pope John Paul II, Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, 1987]
“God’s heart has a special place for the poor, so much so that he himself 'became poor' (2 Cur 8:9). The entire history of our redemption is marked by the presence of the poor. Salvation came to us from the 'yes' uttered by a lowly maiden from a small town on the fringes of a great empire.” (#197)
“Without the preferential option for the poor, ‹‹the proclamation of the Gospel, which is itself the prime form of charity, risks being misunderstood or submerged by the ocean of words which daily engulfs us in today’s society of mass communications››” (#199) [John Paul II, Novo Millenio ineunte, 2001]

No. 6 De-centralization of the Papacy

This may strike as an odd theme in a document on evangelization, but it is clear that Francis wants to note that centralization of the Church can harm evangelization:
“The papacy and the central structures of the universal Church also need to hear the call to pastoral conversion. The Second Vatican Council stated that, like the ancient patriarchal Churches, episcopal confer¬ences are in a position ‹‹to contribute in many and fruitful ways to the concrete realization of the collegial spirit›› [Lumen Gentium 23]. Yet this desire has not been fully realized, since a juridical status of episcopal conferences which would see them as subjects of specific attributions, including genuine doctrinal authority, has not yet been sufficiently elaborated. Excessive centralization complicates the Church’s life and her missionary outreach. (#32)
“Countless issues involving evangelization today might be discussed here, but I have chosen not to explore these many questions which call for further reflection and study. Nor do I believe that the papal magisterium should be expected to offer a definitive or complete word on every question which affects the Church and the world. It is not advisable for the Pope to take the place of local Bishops in the discernment of every issue which arises in their territory. In this sense, I am conscious of the need to promote a sound 'decentralization'” (#16).
Pope Francis also practices this principle throughout the document by quoting different groups of bishops.