by Fr Noel Connolly SSC, Plenary Council Facilitation Team
Friedrich Nietzsche, the atheistic, “death of God” philosopher, was fond of taunting his Christian friends with: “I’ll believe in your redeemer when you look more redeemed.”
Pope Francis in Evangelii Gaudium makes a similar challenge. He asks, what kind of missionaries are Christians who look like “Lent without Easter” (6), or people “who have just come back from a funeral” (10), “querulous and disillusioned pessimists, sourpusses” (85), “defeated generals” (96)?
He prays, “May the world of our time, which is searching, sometimes with anguish, sometimes with hope, be enabled to receive the good news not from evangelisers who are dejected, discouraged, impatient or anxious, but from ministers of the Gospel whose lives glow with fervour, who have first received the joy of Christ.” (10)
So, even at a time when the Church has never been more criticised and questioned, it is important that we rediscover our joy in being Christian and share this with our secular brother and sister Australians.
We may never be a perfect Church, but hopefully we can come across as a more attractive, “redeemed” and servant Church.