It is a truly extraordinary thing that the Apostles, who during Our Lord’s Passion, fled and hid behind locked doors for fear of the Jews, following the Resurrection, were transformed into fearless preachers of the Gospel, with a courage that no threat or persecution could silence.

St Luke tells us in the Acts of the Apostles that Our Lord, “presented Himself alive after His Passion by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days, and speaking of the kingdom of God” (1:3). During this time He instructed them and strengthened them for the immense task that lay ahead of them – the proclamation of the Gospel to the whole world. And Our Lord gave them their mission: “You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (1:8). They were to be witnesses and even martyrs to the truth of the Resurrection of Christ. It was the Resurrection that was the foundation of everything, and St Peter would later declare of Christ, “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under Heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (4:12). This is a teaching not popular with the modern world. We are often told all religions are basically the same and lead to God, and that truth is subjective. But that’s not what Our Lord or the Apostles taught. The Apostles all died for the truth that salvation is found in Christ alone. And Our Lord Himself said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by Me” (John 14:6). St John Chrysostom (347-407), reflecting on this, marvelled that these once weak men became fearless, precisely because they knew what was at stake – the salvation of souls. That’s why after the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, they didn’t remain in Jerusalem. They went and preached the Gospel fearlessly to the farthest ends of the earth. This is why missionaries, men and women, for centuries risked their lives, crossing oceans and going to far off places from which they knew they would probably never return, where they were often mocked, tortured and martyred – all to preach JESUS Christ as the one and only Saviour and Redeemer of the world. And they succeeded in converting the pagan world with its countless false gods by truth, charity and God’s grace. People can, of course, be saved outside the Catholic Church, but they are saved by Christ and the Church He founded – not their own religion, but that is a separate issue (Catechism of the Catholic Church, #846-847).

Then we come to our own times. The false gods have returned – this time materialism, moral relativism and narcissism. Our once Christian country and Christian Europe is fast fading away into oblivion. It is not uncommon nowadays for Christian men and women to be arrested for peaceably preaching the Gospel in public places or even for praying silently outside an abortion clinic. It’s “Keep your faith to yourself, and don’t you dare try and witness!” The Apostles were told the same thing, and they responded, “We must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29).

So we need to urgently recover apostolic zeal before it’s too late. It’s up to us. We are the new “apostles.” The government are not going to save us, and as Venerable Fulton Sheen once famously said, the clergy aren’t going to save us either! Many people we know, our families and friends may be far from the truth, but do we believe enough to speak? Do we love enough to act? Think about it: everything we value most in our civilisation comes from Christ – human dignity, charity, mercy, justice, the dignity of women. Cut off from Him, these things simply won’t endure. Our task, therefore, is clear. We have to reconvert our neighbours, and there are already many good signs of this in our parish. We must bring Christ back into our homes, our places of work and study and into our culture. We must truly work for the victory of Christianity over the false gods of our age – not with arrogance, but with truth and courage. This would not be a victory of domination, but of salvation.

Fr Paul Gillham, IC