A s different opinions are being expressed concerning the actual institutional leadership of the Church in Malta, it seems to me that the discussion regarding what must be done to bring back to the fold those who have strayed should be broadened. Facing a clearly steady decline in church attendance over the past 45 years of Sunday Mass census, it is high time to roll up our sleeves and act collectively as a Church.

The shake-up that we, as Church, necessarily need is to recover our ingrained baptismal duty to evangelise.

Pope Paul VI spelled out this incumbent obligation which stems from our baptismal font in his celebrated encyclical on the proclamation of the Gospel to the people of today, Evangelii Nuntiandi. He said: “Evangelising is, in fact, the grace and vocation proper to the Church, her deepest identity. She exists in order to evangelise”.

It was Christ himself who charged his Church with this fundamental mission. Before ascending into heaven, He entrusted to his apostles this basic task. “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and, lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age” (Mt 28:18-20).

The current debate is also a heartfelt invitation to intensify our Christian collective mission of evangelisation

The first part of Christ’s mandate has been successfully completed. Many are those who have been baptised.

Many have been initiated into Christ. However, more needs to be done when it comes to “teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you”.

There is a dire need to bring the baptised into maturity. The Letter to the Ephesians reminds us that the Church, that is the entire Christian community, is there “to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; so that we may no longer be children…” (Eph 4:12-14).

When I relegate my Christian faith to my minimal Sunday Mass attendance but then I do not let Christ’s teaching influence my spiritual, moral, social and political choices am I not still a child in my faith?

During his homily at morning Mass in the Domus Sanctae Marthae on April 15, Pope Francis said: “The Church cannot be merely ‘a babysitter who takes care of the child just to get him to sleep’. If she were this, hers would be a ‘slumbering church’.

“Whoever knows Jesus has the strength and the courage to proclaim him. And whoever has received baptism has the strength to walk, to go forward, to evangelise and ‘when we do this the Church becomes a mother who generates children’ capable of bringing Christ to the world.”

In view of this healing exhortation and correction, besides offering the sacraments, the Church, both in her hierarchy and laity, should seriously embark on a teaching journey. By sacramentalising alone, a spiritual vacuum is continually created in the hearts and minds of her faithful.

On the other hand, when accompanied by a sound instruction on its life-changing meaning, sacramental grace bears abundant good fruit in those who receive it with an ardent faith.

In fact, catechesis has the power to create in the individual the right disposition, that ‘open heart’ which is so crucial for a real transformation in Jesus Christ.

The new evangelisation, which the last three popes have been insistently harping upon, should include a fourfold formation, which, incidentally, is also parallel to the four ‘pillars of the faith’ as well as to the fourfold structure of the catechism of the Catholic Church, namely the creed, sacraments, moral life and prayer.

Whether we are bishops, priests, deacons or laity, all of us must meet Jesus. In Him we find ourselves renewed.

When we preach Him and base our parishes on Him, His redeeming light will reach homes, families, working environments, nations and the entire world.

Thus, the current debate is not merely a question of Church leadership but a heartfelt invitation to intensify our Christian collective mission of evangelisation.

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