Dear Friends, The plight of the UN aid workers on trial in Afghanistan for the crime of preaching Christianity once again reminds us of our Christian duty to evangelise whatever the odds. The modern day Catholic unfortunately does not see any point in sacrificing his comfort and security for the sake of evangelisation. The flip side of not focussing on evangelisation is that members start leaving the Church to join other religions or the new sects. This phenomenon has already reached alarming proportions in many parishes of Mumbai.
The crux of effective evangelisation is understanding and making others understand the grace of Baptism. Jesus voluntarily subjected himself to the rite of baptism in the river Jordan before beginning His public ministry and went on to say that no one can enter the kingdom of heaven unless he is reborn of water and the Spirit (i.e. baptised). The grace of Baptism:  Baptism results in the forgiveness of the individuals sins (original plus personal) as well as the punishment for sin, thereby making him an adopted son of God and partaker in his divine nature.  The baptised person receives the gift of faith and the anointing of the Holy Spirit.  Baptism further opens the doors for him to receive the Sacraments of Reconciliation, Eucharist and Confirmation. We must realise that the devil has a vested interest in preventing people from becoming Christians. He knows that unbaptised people can be easily deceived when it comes to spiritual matters. False religions are one of the deceptions practiced by him on them. The false religions keep their adherents burdened and pre-occupied with meaningless rituals and superstitions. They exchange the truth about God for a lie, and teach people to worship and serve the creation (i.e. stars, nature, animals, idols, humans, angels etc.) instead of the Creator himself (ROM 1:25). It is only the anointing of the Holy Spirit (received through Baptism and affirmed through Confirmation) which enables man to see the lie. This is why Holy Mother Church holds firm to the mission she has received from the Lord, to see to it that as many people as possible are baptised. Let us be clear whom we are fighting against. We have no quarrel with our Hindu or Moslem brethren. Our real fight is against the forces of darkness. Jesus tells us that He is sending us out as lambs among the wolves. St Paul tells us to put on the whole armour of God. The Church asks you and me today: Have you grown up to evangelisation yet? Hai tujme ithna dham? SOJAN K. J. ===== A/32, KRISHNAGIR APT, KULUPWADI ROAD, NEAR NATIONAL PARK, BORIVLI EAST, MUMBAI - 400 066 PHONE (R) 884 3879 **************************************************************** This mail is generated from JOYnet, a Jesus Youth mailing list. To unsubscribe, send a mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe to this mailing list, visit http://www.jesusyouth.org/joynet For automatic help, send a mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] In case of any issue related to the mailing list contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] ****************************************************************
