To be a Christian is to be an apostle, to have a mission statement. The Christian apostolate, evangelization, consists in telling the world our meeting staff with Jesus Christ: to communicate (above all with the coherence of our life) this good news, the great news, the best news for each person and for humanity.

And what is this news? That God has not only spoken to us in his creation, in the world around us, and also in the Scriptures; but that he has sent us his Son to free us from sin and, through the Eucharist, to give us a full life.

This makes us witnesses and proclaimers of the Gospel.

Jesus Christ, the Gospel of God for man. This is the title of the first chapter of the Document of work for the Synod on the New Evangelization. Gospel means "good news". And Jesus is the good news for man because he is the great "yes" that God has pronounced to all that is ours. God the Father wanted His Son, His only Son, to become man, to share our earth and our life: to have a family, a work, to relate to those around him, to have friends, and later to have disciples. In his life, as described in the Gospels, we find the answer to our yearnings and concerns, our labors, tasks and sorrows.

And how can we communicate this great news? First of all with the coherence of our conduct, also with the words that transmit our experience to others, with the arguments that explain why faith gives meaning to our life. We Christians cannot fail to bear witness to this meeting with Jesus that transforms each one of us into living messengers of this "good news" for those around us.

It is not just a matter of cold and objective "information", but of "communication" in the deepest sense of the word: action that puts in "communion", that unites, by making us participate in this message that brings true happiness when it is lived authentically.

The healings of Jesus and his attention to everyone (preferably the poor and needy) are a sign that "God is love" and that love is the only force capable of renewing us from within and, as a consequence, renewing all things.

This is why the invitation to "believe in love," which is manifested in Christ, is the core of the Christian faith, which translates into the pursuit of holiness. And all this requires conversion: to look towards God, who is where our life and our future lie. Therefore evangelization (the Christian apostolate), the call to holiness and conversion are three realities that in their fruitful and reciprocal relationship give life to Christians (cf. Instrument of work, n. 24).

Union with Christ and life in him lead to evangelization. The task of the Church, evangelized and evangelizing, consists in deepening her knowledge of Christ and in announcing and transmitting the Gospel (the knowledge which she possesses, and renews day after day, of Christ and union with him). And she does this with the power of the Holy Spirit: "Evangelizing constitutes, in fact, the joy and vocation proper to the Church, her deepest identity" (Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Nuntiandi, n. 14).

Helping everyone to encounter Christ in faith is the primary goal of evangelization. For this reason, "where, as Church, 'we give people only knowledge, skills, technical abilities and instruments, we give them too little' (Benedict XVI, Homily in Munich, 10-IX-2006)".

It should be noted that, in this document of work for the next synod, the term "evangelization" is taken in a very broad sense, equivalent to everything that the Church does for mankind. The Gospel is a gift for every person and everything that belongs to man.      

Evangelization includes both the physical dimension (compassion for material needs, sickness and suffering) and the spiritual dimension (liberation from sin). The saints are those who have walked this path with various means and methods, works and institutions, which they considered appropriate in their time. They were creative in their lives to bring Christ to their contemporaries. Today, many Christians follow these paths opened by the saints and continue to be witnesses of Christ in them. In order to succeed in transmitting the joy of faith to the men and women of today, all Christians must be creative, wherever they find themselves: in the midst of the world's affairs or in religious life. Sometimes - and not infrequently in the third millennium - with their martyrdom, which gives credibility to their witness.

Nevertheless, there is no lack of false convictions that oppose evangelization. Some maintain that it means limiting freedom, so that it would be enough to help people to be better or more faithful to their own religion, or even simply to work for justice and peace, especially since salvation is possible outside the visible margins of the Church (cf. Instrument of work, n. 35; Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, grade doctrinal on some aspects of evangelization, December 3, 2007, n. 3).

However, in this way it would be forgotten that in Jesus Christ is the true face of God and in the Church the fullness of truth and the means of salvation. Hence the right of every person to be evangelized and the duty of the Church to evangelize (after being continually evangelized) and also of every baptized person.

Perhaps people can be saved by other ways, thanks to God's mercy, if we do not proclaim the Gospel to them. But this does not exempt us from asking ourselves: "Can we save ourselves if through negligence, fear, shame (...) or false ideas we fail to proclaim it?"(Evangelii Nuntiandi, n. 80).

Moreover, proclaiming the Gospel (the apostolate or the Christian mission statement ), being a task and a duty staff, is never a purely individual and solitary business , nor can it be centered on certain strategies of selection of recipients (cf. Instrument of work, n. 39); rather it is a Christian and spiritual activity in the framework of the ecclesial community, sincerely open to all.

When we Christians bring our friends, relatives, colleagues, acquaintances, etc., closer to God, we do not leave our family, the family of Jesus, which is the Church, on the sidelines. On the contrary, we also speak to them about her, because she is (she must be in every age and in every place) our body, our home, the mother who has begotten us and educates us in love and beauty. And each of us must be, from this living body, life for others.

For this reason the synod is called to promote to reflect, in each case, on "the capacity of the Church to be configured as a real community, as a true fraternity, as a body and not as a business" (Ibid.). Thus the intimate relationship between evangelization and renewal of the Church is posed.

How to contribute to this renewal? At the starting point is the renewal staff, each one in his own place, with the "talents" (material or spiritual) that we have received, in the context of family, professional and social life, in the horizon of being members of the living body of the Church in the world.

Most of the baptized are not "ecclesiastics", but all are Church, and the term (from the Greek Ecclesia) means "vocation of many": all are called, all are responsible for the new evangelization, for communicating this great news that transforms our lives.