The joy of announcing the Gospel

“The Gospel joy which enlivens the community of the disciples is a missionary joy” E. G. 21

This phrase from Evangelium Gaudium summarizes these eleven years in Colombia as a community or more specifically these years in the diocese of Caldas, Antioquia.

The Gospel joy enlivens our community of Servants of the Gospel in Colombia. Every morning when we wake up, we start the engine of faith by coming before the Risen Jesus in prayer. The great joy we feel comes from the certainty of being deeply loved by Him, and from discovering that he is waiting for us all day in the mission.

In this missionary joy, Jesus sends us out from prayer to the mission. Every week we go to a secondary school where we have encounters with the young people of the school. These encounters include games, dynamics and small talks. There we transmit that we have a God who is Father, who loves us and who will always be with us. In another little talk we show how their life can leave a mark in this world. Every week we contemplate the miracle of Jesus acting in the mission, we can see how he passes through the life of these young people after each encounter and leaves a new joy in each one of them.

Every Friday in the parish, we offer young people the opportunity to journey in faith getting to know more and more about Jesus. Little by little we see the miracle in their lives of the encounter with God in the enthusiasm and joy they show and the fact that they want to participate every week.

This missionary joy is communitarian as we prepare, think and carry out the mission together. It is the joy of thinking together how we can love Jesus more and how we can make him loved in the mission, by allowing others to know him and to enter into this joy of the Gospel.

This preferential option for young people leads us to more consecration, as we consecrate our mind, heart, strength to reaching each young person in their context the best we can so that the Gospel has a greater repercussion and impact in their lives.

I invite you to enter into this joy of announcing the Gospel, in your daily life. It can be in your workplace, where you are studying or in your family, whichever area is closest to you, where your life and decisions can make a difference.