(The Nationalist, October 2004)
A taxi-driver once asked me, ‘Are you good at praying?’ I think what he meant by it was, ‘Do you get things you pray for?’ Because I wore the habit of a religious Order he saw me as an expert, one who could get results. He felt I had something he didn’t have. People see the work of spreading the Gospel in a similar way: as a job best left to the professionals.
One of the things I learned in twenty years in Africa is that being a missionary is as much about receiving as it is about giving. Spreading the Gospel means allowing it to convert the giver no less than the recipient. It means speaking from experience rather than teaching. It is about sharing rather than laying down a party line. It is about listening rather than talking. It is about encouraging people to speak of the experience of God that they have already had, and most people have had some kind of religious experience. It is about seeking and finding Jesus in others, rather than bringing him to others, as if we carried him around in our pocket.
We need to recognize that God works in many different ways, outside the Church no less than within it, that all truth is God’s truth, no matter how it is revealed. On many occasions I have been as humbled by the honesty and courage of people outside the Church as I have been ashamed and embarrassed by some of those within it. Part of preaching the Gospel is to help people appreciate how much God is active in their lives even though they may not often be aware of it. It is to help people have a sense of wonder – for example, a feeling of the inter-connectedness of all creation – and to be grateful for it.
We need to listen to people, not just with the ears, but with the heart. We need to speak the language of the heart, and to have for people an understanding that nourishes hope. Spreading the Gospel is mainly about the character of relationships. It can be as simple as people giving quality time to each other, listening to each other and learning from each other.
Saint Francis of Assisi one day sent two of his brothers into a town with the instruction, ‘Preach the Gospel, and, if necessary, use words’.