My mother, God rest her soul, would never have described herself as a good evangelist. She didn’t think she was any good at finding the right words or holding all the doctrines in her mind. But she was a good mother, and so she was quite good at proposing conversion while respecting my freedom. Throughout my middle school and high school years, she would go to Confession every few weeks, always with an invitation and not forcing me to go with her. Her invitation was a subtle proclamation of the saving power of Jesus reinforced by regular discussions about encountering him in the sacrament. Because of her gentle and persistent proclamation, I went to Confession far more frequently than I would have on my own and developed a genuine love of the experience. In this, she was not just a good evangelist; she was excellent.
Contrast my mother with the typical street preacher who comes to mind when you hear the word evangelist. He stands in a crowd yelling through a bullhorn about Jesus and judgement and is largely ignored or avoided by those around him. This guy, trying to impose his version of Jesus on everyone around him, often just pushes them further away.
For evangelization to be fruitful, it must also be patient. It necessarily involves profound respect for the individual’s freedom. Authentic Catholic evangelization proposes but does not impose. The Church asserts quite firmly, “the human person has a right to religious freedom” (Second Vatican Council, Declaration on Religious Liberty, sec.2). The goal of evangelization is for non-believers to freely turn to the Lord, not to berate them into Baptism. Referring to the missionary work expected of every Christian, the Second Vatican Council also says, “In order to bear witness to Christ, fruitfully, they should establish relationships of respect and love with those men” (Decree on the Missionary Activity of the Church, sec. 11). Fruitful evangelization requires relationships of love and respect that allow the other to give a free response to the Gospel.
Propose, but don’t impose. This requires great love and respect for others, and also a lot of patience.
The magisterium of recent Popes gives further weight to this conciliar teaching on evangelization. Pope John Paul II stressed the need to respect freedom of conscience, stating, “the Church addresses people with full respect for their freedom. Her mission does not restrict freedom but rather promotes it. The Church proposes; she imposes nothing. […] she honors the sanctuary of conscience” (Redemptoris Mission 39). Pope Francis emphasized that the Church wins new members by attraction and not through proselytizing, which calls for great patience and a “disregard for the constraints of time” (Evangelium Gaudium 15 and 24). He points out that the evangelizer must avoid “forgetting that no one is more patient than God our Father, that no one is more understanding and willing to wait. He always invites us to take a step forward, but does not demand a full response if we are not yet ready” (Evangelium Gaudium 53). The Lord does not demand a full response right away, and so we shouldn’t either. To be good evangelists, we must propose the Gospel and then wait patiently for a response that may only be partial at first.
This same process plays out repeatedly in Jesus’ own interactions throughout the Gospels. One such example is his discussion with the woman at the well found in John 4:7-30. Throughout this exchange, Jesus invites her to successively deeper levels of engagement and waits for her to engage him there before pushing further.
Jesus begins with a simple request for drink and gently guides her to consider his identity: “If you knew […] who it is that is saying to you […]” (John 4:10). She responds with a question related to his identity: “Are you greater than our father Jacob[?]” (John 4:12). Having moved the woman beyond initial trust and spiritual curiosity, Jesus now gently moves the conversation to be even more personal, inviting her to consider her marital history. His knowledge of her past prompts the woman to recognize Jesus’ identity at a deeper level, calling him a prophet. In their discussion of the proper worship of God, the woman reveals her spiritual openness by stating that the Messiah will come and “show us all things” (John 4:25), implying that the Messiah’s coming could convince her to change the way she worships God and lives her life.
Now that the woman has freely followed Jesus into a deeper engagement, and now that she has brought up the Messiah’s coming, Jesus makes his most straightforward proclamation: “I who speak to you am he” (John 4:26), a proclamation that invites her to respond. She accepts that Jesus is the Messiah and embraces what we might call intentional discipleship by leaving behind her water jar to go evangelize her town. In her witness, she describes how Jesus affected her personally—“Come see a man who told me all that I did”—and clearly invites others to consider “Can this be the Christ?” (John 4:29). Through their conversation, Jesus repeatedly invites her to respond in a way that profoundly and patiently respects her freedom.
Some of the biggest hurdles to sharing the Gospel with someone else is that we don’t want to be pushy or to offend them. But you only need to be pushy and offensive if your goal is a short term one. To evangelize authentically, we need to play the long game, with patience, genuine love, and a profound respect for freedom.
