Evangelii Gaudium Sunday will be celebrated across England and Wales in our parishes on Sunday, 15 September. Formerly Home Mission Sunday, the theme this year is ‘Growing as Missionary Disciples’.
In a filmed interview ahead of the day, Bishop David Oakley, Chair of the Bishops’ Conference Department for Evangelisation and Discipleship and the Bishop of Northampton, examines how we can become more ‘intentionally missionary’ in our homes and parishes.
Interview
Bishop Oakley: Evangelii Gaudium is a complicated term. What does it mean? It literally means the ‘Joy of the Gospel’, which is, of course, the title of the first Apostolic Letter that Pope Francis wrote to us all in the Church. It’s one of my favourite documents of modern times because it speaks of the joy of being intentionally missionary as individuals and as communities – parish or diocese. The whole point about being missionary was brought home to me recently when I decided to refresh my Confirmation homilies and thought, “I’ll have a look again at what the Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us about the sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation,” which are, of course, intrinsically related. Through baptism, we are brought into that new relationship with the Trinity God, in which we become missionaries in the pattern of Jesus, the missionary. So that was something which really got me thinking because I’m sure when I was baptised as a baby, I wasn’t thinking about being a missionary disciple! But when a parish becomes intentionally missional, that means it takes on the characteristic of those who are proclaiming the Kingdom of God in our society today.
Interviewer: Looking at the theme ‘Growing as Missionary Disciples’, what is it to you, as a bishop, to be a disciple of Christ, commissioned to share that Gospel message?
The first thing to say is that I am a disciple of Christ, or should I say, I strive to be. As priests or bishops we are not absolved from the daily task of appropriating discipleship into our lives. Being a disciple of Jesus is my daily encounter with Him through prayer, my desire to immerse myself into His Word, and allow that Word to really speak to me.
We can’t do anything for anyone unless we are encountering the living God ourselves.
Bishop David Oakley
Everything in the Gospel is designed to show me that I am the disciple of Christ commissioned to share the Gospel message, because that is the great commandment, to go out and to proclaim the Gospel to all the nations. I have to do that in the Diocese of Northampton. Many of you will be seeking to do that in your families, and I know how difficult that can be, but I also know how generous many of you are in wanting to know how to be more missionary within your family and within your parish community.
Interviewer: I want to turn to scripture now, because I was looking at Pope Francis’s visit to Indonesia and he said “Listening to the Word and living the Word are two fundamental attitudes that enable us to become Jesus’s disciples.” So just to build on that, how important is scripture in helping us to grow as missionary disciples?
Scripture is imperative because, first of all, it is the Word of God. It is the Word that has been revealed to us. Scripture often seeks to overcome some of the erroneous ideas that we have about things. One of my favourite moments of the scripture is Genesis 3. It’s about the fall of humanity from grace and the breaking of our relationship with our heavenly Father. It’s not a nice theme, I’ll grant you, but it’s often misunderstood. I often hear people telling me that God doesn’t love them anymore, that God has somehow turned his back on them and so forth. What we read in Genesis 3 is that God comes looking for His created people, those He has made in His own image and likeness – God never gives up on us. I think that’s a message which is crucially important for us today.
I love the way the Catechism starts in its account of the journey of faith. It says that that journey begins with the longing and yearning of the human heart. So as we celebrate Evangelii Gaudium Sunday, we need to be absolutely certain and convicted of this truth that everybody that we meet in our daily lives wants to know about the truth of God that He has revealed to us. It’s not always obvious, but then it’s not always obvious to me some days that I am open to that truth. But scripture tells me about that truth.
I just want to encourage everyone who is watching and listening to this, to think about really taking the Word of God seriously and delving into it. There’s a way that we can do that – through the lectionary. So with the Church’s liturgy, day by day, we can encounter that living Word, which brings us into a personal and deeper relationship with the Lord, because that’s how we become intentional missionary disciples.
In my own diocese, we have a need to have intercessors, to have people gathering together, maybe, or on their own who are praying for the Church’s work of mission and evangelisation here in England and Wales. That’s a very important thing. It’s not, “Oh, by the way, we ought to be praying.” Prayer and regular intercession is important. Trying to grow ourselves in our faith is important, understanding our faith and taking seriously our baptism commitment to becoming missionary and not to get too anxious or worried about what that might look like. In my experience, we all have family members, we all have friends, we all have work colleagues, and sometimes a smile and a gentle openness to the other as we seek to live out our Gospel within our everyday lives, that can have more impact than people might imagine.
Interviewer: So, in a sense, it’s a little bit of encouragement and formation of ourselves in order to step out strongly?
Absolutely. Every single day. We can’t do anything for anyone unless we are encountering the living God ourselves.
Interviewer: Bishop David Oakley, thank you very much.
