Is Jesus enough?
In ministry, do we just Jesus and the Church, or are people drawn to Catholicism as much by the language of friendship and fellowship?
The Catholic Thing, 25 January 2025
In the work of evangelization is it sufficient to preach Christ crucified? Or do we need to offer something more than Jesus? Does successful evangelization require Jesus plus something more immediate, practical, useful?
Jesus Himself alluded to such questions when he told the crowds eagerly following Him: “Truly, truly, I say to you, you seek me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.” (John 6:26)
Does evangelization require some loaves too?
Cardinal Angelo Amato, prefect emeritus of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, died recently. He died while the relics of St. Francis Xavier were exposed, as they are every ten years, in Goa, and as the tenth anniversary of the canonization of St. Joseph Vaz, the first native-born Goan saint, approached.
His passing brought to mind a conversation I had with him in January 2015. I was on my way to Sri Lanka for the visit of Pope Francis. He would canonize Vaz in Colombo, just as he would canonize Junipero Serra in Washington later that year, as part of his program of canonizing the great missionary saints (he had canonized St. François de Laval of Quebec in 2014).
At a clergy conference in Rome that January, Amato spoke about Joseph Vaz (1651-1711), the Edmund Campion of Sri Lanka, conducting a clandestine ministry after the Dutch suppressed Catholic practice.
“Today, Joseph Vaz is a more important model than Francis Xavier,” Amato said. Those were fighting words for us Goans, who honor Francis Xavier and consider him the greatest missionary after St. Paul. So, I asked Cardinal Amato why he would say such a thing.
“Francis Xavier evangelized with the support of state power,” Amato replied. “Today, we don’t have state power to support us; sometimes it is against us. Joseph Vaz evangelized against state power. Francis Xavier did not have to do that.”
Francis Xavier arrived in Goa and traveled beyond, courtesy of the Portuguese crown, just as Junipero Serra relied on the Spanish crown and as François de Laval relied on the French crown. Crown support was not without difficulties – Laval fought with the French colonial authorities to keep the alcohol trade away from the indigenous peoples. Nevertheless, even when the missionaries were at odds with the crown, their very presence depended in large part upon them.
On his feast day, we read in the breviary the inspiring letter Francis Xavier wrote to St. Ignatius Loyola:
Many, many people hereabouts are not becoming Christians for one reason only: there is nobody to make them Christians. Again and again I have thought of going round the universities of Europe, especially Paris, and everywhere crying out like a madman, riveting the attention of those with more learning than charity: “What a tragedy: how many souls are being shut out of heaven and falling into hell, thanks to you!”
That stirs up the zeal, which is all to the good. But we don’t read the letters of Francis Xavier to the Portuguese king, demanding more resources for the mission, or his accounts of how the local Portuguese governors have been most helpful, not only with material resources but also in favorable treatment for Christians. Francis Xavier was able to offer Jesus – and something more.
The Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes by Jacopo Tintoretto (Jacopo Robusti), 1545-50 [The MET, New York]
That seems to be a common pattern. Without the miracles, would Jesus have attracted quite so many? No, although it remains always true that some will follow Jesus for His sake alone. Even for those who follow Him for material blessings – the “hundredfold” (Mark 10:30) of houses, family, lands – Jesus does not hide that these will come “with persecutions” for His followers.
Yet when the Cross comes, nearly all flee. At Pentecost a great number are added. Is it because Peter preaches Jesus Christ, or because of the wonder and awe of each hearing the Good News in his own language?
It’s usually both. Loaves and languages get attention, create attraction, after which the possibility of sincere conversion comes. It can be that attention and attraction produce an initial following without authentic conversion, and when hardship arrives, those fall away. That too is a recurring pattern.
What does that mean for evangelization now?
Continue reading at The Catholic Thing.