How do we speak about God?

Wednesday Audience: November 28, 2012

In last week's general audience, the Holy Father addressed a fundamental question for the New Evangelization: How do we speak about God to our contemporaries?  He was quick to point out that Jesus asked the same question when he said, "With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable shall we use for it?"  How do we get our message across?

The first condition for speaking about God is to listen to Him and learn from Jesus the art of living.  He is the response to the fundamental question of why and how to live.

We must also have a familiarity with the Gospel and a passion for God's design of salvation, using his own methods: humility, small steps, confidence in God, simplicity.  The Gospel tells us about a God who is real and concrete, who is interested in us and who comes close to us in Jesus Christ.  He gives us hope and opens us up to a life that never ends, life eternal and true.

RESTOUT, Jean IIAnanias Restoring the Sight of St Paul

Saint Paul is a wonderful example of what this looks like.  Wherever he went to preach the Gospel, he tried over and over again to speak only of the Person who had penetrated his life and transformed it.  He made room in his life for Jesus and thus was able to make Jesus known.  When Paul preached, it was never about himself: he let his "I" live in Jesus Christ.  We can learn from Saint Paul that the more we put Jesus at the center of our lives, the more fruitful our communication will be!

However, perhaps the best thing for us to reflect on is how Jesus himself communicated.  He has a unique type of communication with his Father -Abbà- and speaks of the kingdom of God with his gaze full of compassion for the difficulties and trials of human existence.  He speaks realistically and makes essentially transparent how much the world and our life matter to God.  In him the world and all creation see the face of God; God is present in our daily life.  In the Gospels we read this: Jesus is interested in every situation that he encounters and enters fully into realities of the men and women he meets.  Now, in our time, Jesus is doing the same thing.  We just can't see him.  He is present, though, and if we are attentive we can meet him.  In Jesus, proclamation of the Gospel and life are one thing.  And he acts and teaches always out of his intimate relationship with God the Father.

The family has privileged place at this level of evangelization, since the parents are first to educate and open their children's consciences to the love of God.  The Holy Father mentioned three virtues that will be most important to renew family life:

• vigilance: to grasp the right moments to bring faith to light and to help it to grow through mature reflection
• joy: the joy of Easter, which does not silence or hide suffering, pain, and death, but knows how to interpret everything in light of Christian hope
• dialogue: give and take, listen and speak, in order to understand and love one another more deeply.  We are sign for one another of God's merciful love.

In short, it is time for us to allow ourselves to be transformed by God's immense love for us and, through this transformation, to renew our life and our relationships.  The grace of God will transform us if we open up. God can overcome our individualism, self-centeredness, indifference, so that we can live out our love for him in our daily circumstances, whatever they may be.  We can thus be people of joy.  Blessed Advent!

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