From Captivity to Captivation: Gratitude and Apostolate

Inspiration from St Patrick

A characteristic call from Pope Francis

It is characteristic of the current Holy Father that he confirms his brothers and sisters in the Faith (cf. Lk 22:32), by continually encouraging us to go out and spread it, to speak to everyone everywhere of Jesus Christ. Just a few weeks ago he reminded us: “The world needs Christians who allow themselves to be moved, who do not tire of walking on life’s streets, to bring the comforting Word of Jesus to everyone. Every baptized person has received the vocation to proclaim – to proclaim something, to proclaim Jesus – the vocation and mission to evangelize: to proclaim Jesus!” (Angelus, 2 February 2020). 

How do we keep our proclamation of Jesus fresh and vibrant? How to persevere in proclaiming our Lord when we feel the temptation of discouragement or people around us seem uninterested? 

The gratitude of St Patrick

The gratitude of St Patrick which permeates his entire Confession can be an inspiration for us in this regard. Patrick is overwhelmed by the love of Christ who released him from the severest form of slavery.  In Ireland, enslaved in the physical sense, the Lord released him from spiritual slavery: “The Lord opened my mind to an awareness of my unbelief, in order that, even so late, I might remember my transgressions and turn with all my heart to the Lord my God, who had regard for my insignificance and pitied my youth and ignorance” (Confession 2).

Patrick’s zeal to proclaim Jesus comes from his intimate realization that he has been saved by the Redeemer. Patrick is overwhelmed by the love of Christ who has turned his life around and made him a herald of eternal life to all who care to listen. He has moved from being a miserable captive to being truly liberated, captivated by Christ.

Echoes of St Paul

The life and writing of St Patrick have many parallels with St Paul. Like St Paul, St Patrick’s zeal to share the Gospel with everyone is born from his realization that he has been eternally loved by God in his Son and saved by the Passion of Jesus. In a graphic and familiar image, Patrick explains this process in the following terms: “I was like a stone lying deep in the mud. Then he who is powerful came and in his mercy pulled me out, and lifted me up and placed me on the very top of the wall. That is why I must shout aloud in return to the Lord for such great good deeds of his, here and now and forever, which the human mind cannot measure” (Confession 12). This is reminiscent of St Paul who exclaims: “For the love of Christ controls us, because we are convinced that one has died for all; therefore all have died. And he died for all, that those who live might live no longer for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised” (2 Cor 5:14-15).

Renewing our apostolic zeal is a matter of plumbing the depths of God’s saving love for us. If we have been saved, we cannot contain ourselves from proclaiming this salvation to the four winds.

The patron saint of Sudan

Another and more recent example of moving from human captivity to loving captivation by Christ, is that of St Josephine Bakhita, canonized by Pope St John Paul II in 2000. Benedict XVI tells her moving story at the start of his encyclical on Christian hope: “She was born around 1869 – she herself did not know the precise date – in Darfur in Sudan. At the age of nine, she was kidnapped by slave-traders, beaten till she bled, and sold five times in the slave-markets of Sudan. Eventually she found herself working as a slave for the mother and the wife of a general, and there she was flogged every day till she bled; as a result of this she bore 144 scars throughout her life. Finally, in 1882, she was bought by an Italian merchant for the Italian consul Callisto Legnani, who returned to Italy as the Mahdists advanced. Here, after the terrifying ‘masters’ who had owned her up to that point, Bakhita came to know a totally different kind of ‘master’ – in Venetian dialect, which she was now learning, she used the name ‘paron’ for the living God, the God of Jesus Christ. Up to that time she had known only masters who despised and maltreated her, or at best considered her a useful slave. Now, however, she heard that there is a ‘paron’ above all masters, the Lord of all lords, and that this Lord is good, goodness in person. She came to know that this Lord even knew her, that he had created her – that he actually loved her. She too was loved, and by none other than the supreme ‘Paron’, before whom all other masters are themselves no more than lowly servants. She was known and loved and she was awaited. What is more, this master had himself accepted the destiny of being flogged and now he was waiting for her ‘at the Father’s right hand’. Now she had ‘hope’ – no longer simply the modest hope of finding masters who would be less cruel, but the great hope: ‘I am definitively loved and whatever happens to me – I am awaited by this Love. And so my life is good’. Through the knowledge of this hope she was ‘redeemed’, no longer a slave, but a free child of God. She understood what Paul meant when he reminded the Ephesians that previously they were without hope and without God in the world – without hope because without God. Hence, when she was about to be taken back to Sudan, Bakhita refused; she did not wish to be separated again from her ‘Paron’. On 9 January 1890, she was baptized and confirmed and received her first Holy Communion from the hands of the Patriarch of Venice. On 8 December 1896, in Verona, she took her vows in the Congregation of the Canossian Sisters and from that time onwards, besides her work in the sacristy and in the porter’s lodge at the convent, she made several journeys round Italy in order to promote the missions: the liberation that she had received through her encounter with the God of Jesus Christ, she felt she had to extend, it had to be handed on to others, to the greatest possible number of people. The hope born in her which had ‘redeemed’ her she could not keep to herself; this hope had to reach many, to reach everybody” (Spe Salvi 3).

Faithful not to an idea, but to a Person

By grace we have been set free by Christ – “for freedom Christ has set us free” (Gal 5:1) – and the joy of this ultimate liberty is the inspiration behind our daily announcement of Christ to all the people around us. As Msgr Fernando Ocáriz, Prelate of Opus Dei, put it: “A Christian’s fidelity should be a grateful fidelity, because we are not being faithful to an idea but to a Person: to Christ Jesus, our Lord, who (each of us can say) ‘loved me and gave himself for me’ (Gal 2:20).

Gratitude for salvation, captivation by the love of Christ: these are the source of our energetic effort to share the Gospel with everyone. Perhaps many of our contemporaries are suffering from different forms of slavery, or lacking basic human hope, and need to hear the joyful truth that “if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed” (Jn 8:36).

Deepening in Christ so as to share him more widely with others

One of the hallmarks of Pope Francis’ teaching is the call to mission in our daily lives. From immersing ourselves in Christ, thereby constantly rediscovering his saving love for each and all, we are moved to offer him to others in an unceasing way without ever getting discouraged or weary.

The Holy Father challenges us not to “assume that we already know Jesus, that we already know everything about Him. This is not so. Let us pause with the Gospel, perhaps even contemplating an icon of Christ, a ‘Holy face’. Let us contemplate with our eyes and yet more with our hearts; and let us allow ourselves to be instructed by the Holy Spirit, Who tells us inside: It is He! He is the Son of God made lamb, immolated out of love. He alone has brought, He alone has suffered, He alone has atoned for sin, the sin of each one of us, the sin of the world, and also my sins. All of them. He brought them all upon Himself and took them away from us, so that we would finally be free, no longer slaves to evil. Yes, we are still poor sinners, but not slaves, no, not slaves: children, children of God!” (Angelus, 19 January 2020).