"Those who hear the word without putting it into practice, those who have one spiritual abortion after another, making plans for conversion that they systematically abandon when they get halfway down the road, conceive Jesus but do not give birth to him. They are impatient observers of the word, they look at their face in a mirror and then go away forgetting what they looked like (cf. James 1:23). In sum, they are those who have faith but no works."
He doesn't stop there:
" ... there are also those who, on the contrary, give birth to Christ without having conceived him. They do many works, even good ones, that do not come from the heart, from love of God and right intention, but rather from habit, hypocrisy, the pursuit of their own glory and their own interests, or simply from the gratification of doing them. In sum, they are those who have works but no faith."
And he concludes this part of his homily with a sweet quote from St. Francis of Assisi:
"'We are mothers of Christ,' he says, 'when we carry him in our heart and in our body by divine love and with a pure and sincere conscience; we give birth to him through holy works, which should shine forth as an example for others. ... How holy and dear, pleasant, humble, peaceful, lovable and desirable above all things it is to have such a brother and such a son, our Lord Jesus Christ!' The saint is telling us that we conceive Christ when we love him with a sincere heart and with rectitude of conscience, and we give birth to him when we accomplish holy deeds that manifest him to the world."
You may remember St Francis. He was the one who reminded us to "preach the gospel at all times, and, when necessary, use words." He's also the lovey-dovey saint who is a favourite of animal lovers and people who don't like to preach and use the above quote to justify their mantra of "no pushy-pushy the gospy-gospy." What they forget is that St. Francis was a preacher. Not just an ordinary preacher, mind you, but an itinerant one who shared the gospel with his words and actions. St. Francis shared the gospel without compromise, and Fr. Cantalamessa is exhorting us to do likewise.
How do we preach, then? Certainly, neither St. Francis nor Cantalamessa would have us force the gospel's message of unconditional love into the lives, minds, and hearts of our families, friends, and co-workers, but they would have us share it with our families, friends, and co-workers, "at all times."
I think that Catherine Doherty provides us with a good model on how we ought to approach evangelization. In a talk addressed to seminarians and priests she suggested that "the only true dialogue is the one between two crucified persons." If we take a moment to break that down, I think that we can come to a profound understanding of what it means to preach. For instance, when we think of a crucified person, what comes to our minds? We immediately think of the naked, humbled, and wounded Christ, nailed to a tree on our behalf. If the only way for us to enter into a true dialogue is to be like this crucified Christ, what would this image of a naked, humbled, and wounded Christ imply? It implies that we meet every pilgrim, every person yearning for this unconditional love, with an empty heart, naked of judgement, selfishness, and arrogance; we meet them with a heart that acknowledges its brokenness and has removed all masks that seek to hide such limitations. We meet these pilgrims as beggars, with our actions and our words leading them to the Bread of Life. We allow ourselves to become vulnerable, naked, and empty, unassuming and uncompromising in our delivery of the gospel message. That is how we become crucified, and this is how we evangelize: we acknowledge our frailty and our shortcomings as valiant Christian Soldiers. We acknowledge that were it not for the grace of God, we would be the ones searching, unfulfilled in our quest for true happiness.
So, we must preach, lest we become guilty
of "spiritual abortion," but we do it from the base of Christ's cross.
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