Love is the first evangelization

Evangelization or missionary work is not about carrying God to places where He is not there. Because that is impossible. God is everywhere, He is present always everywhere. It is not even about carrying good things to others. It is also not about changing other people—with our ideas. No. Otherwise that would become colonialism and superiority.

Missionary work is not primarily a “work.” It is a response to God and His love. It is response to God’s love, who is always first, who is always and everywhere present. Therefore, love is the first evangelization.

Missionary work, then, is nothing but witnessing to God’s unconditional and unfailing love. Pope Paul VI once said: “Modern person listens more willingly to witnesses than to teachers.” Pope Francis loves that phrase, and it is precisely because of his powerful witness, in both word and deed, that we listen so willingly to him.

I think of evangelization as the great duty of Christian witness. Only Christian love can change hearts, not weapons, not threats, and not the media.

It is love that prepares the way for the announcement of the Gospel. And the love is the message. Love is not only the source and the end, it is also the means. When love is true, it stirs a response of greater love. We need to learn this art of loving, to inspire love in others by our love.

Mother Mary becomes our enduring model of evangelization. As in the Visitation, Mary carries Christ to Elizabeth, but it is Elizabeth that blesses Mary. The Other is my blessing. The poor, the young, the downtrodden, those living on the margins of society... they all are my blessing. “Blessed are the poor.” And Jesus did not say, “Blessed are those who care for the poor.” Unless I become one among the poor, one among the marginalized, I don’t get my blessing. It is they who bless me. I may give Christ to them, but eventually it is they who will save me.

The fire of the burning bush has to burn inside of us, and eventually through us. Transformed people transform people. Transformed people transform the world. Transformed people become agents and catalysts of the fire of love. Our duty is not of "doing" something, but of "being" a Tabernacle like Mary. Our duty is one of allowing the flow of love. Jesus’ actions flowed from his interior communion with God. His presence itself was healing, and it changed the world. In a sense he didn’t do anything! “Everyone who touched him was healed” (Mark 6:56). Flowing people heal just by being there.