The joy of the Gospel that Pope Francis speaks of in his Apostolic Exhortation is not simply a joy one cherishes within self! It is a universal joy to be propagated. This is what is called evangelization. Now the question is: How could we spread the joy of the Gospel? At one time it was thought to be a work of some professionals called missionaries, whose life-long work was to proclaim the Gospel to other nations and convert the people into our Church. As against such a view the EG says: “In virtue of their baptism, all the members of the People of God have become missionary disciples (cf. Mt 28:19). All the baptized, whatever their position in the Church or their level of instruction in the faith, are agents of evangelization. It would be insufficient to envisage a plan of evangelization to be carried out by professionals while the rest of the faithful would simply be passive recipients.”

“The new evangelization calls for personal involvement on the part of each of the baptized. Every Christian is challenged, here and now, to be actively engaged in evangelization; indeed, anyone who has truly experienced God’s saving love does not need much time or lengthy training to go out and proclaim that love. Every Christian is a missionary to the extent that he or she has encountered the love of God in Christ Jesus: we no longer say that we are “disciples” and “missionaries,” but rather that we are always “missionary disciples” (#120). Every Christian, in so far as one has really encountered Jesus and has truly experienced God’s saving love, one is called to offer others an explicit witness to the saving love is challenged, here and now (#120).

So, evangelization can begin immediately, at any time or anywhere, by anybody.What is required is just readiness to bring the love of Jesus to others. This can happen unexpectedly and in any place: on the street, in a city square, during work, on a journey (#127). One can always be respectful and gentle to others, one can enter into personal dialogue, when the other person speaks and shares his or her joys, hopes and concerns for loved ones, or so many other heartfelt needs. In short, it is the real experience of having encountered Christ that should be the real source of our joy. Such a joy would spontaneously exude in anything one does or speaks. This should be the real method of evangelizing.

This is precisely what Gandhi was insisting upon with the past missionaries. Firstly he was dead against the organized propaganda of Christianity involving humanitarian services like medical and educational. “I hold that proselytizing under the cloak of humanitarian work is, to say the least, unhealthy…Why should I change my religion because a doctor who professes Christianity as his religion has cured me of some disease,…Is not medical relief its own reward and satisfaction? Or why should I, whilst I am in a missionary educational institution, have Christian teaching thrust upon me?” (Message, 61).

Gandhi expected from the Christians a real God experience, manifested in and through their behavioural changes. It was not enough for them simply to claim original sin is washed away by Jesus Christ. To those who merely made some claims Gandhi raised such pointed questions as the following: “Who knows the nature of original sin? What is the meaning of separation from God? What is that of union with God? What are the signs of him who is united to God? Are all who dare to preach the message of Jesus Christ sure of their union with God?” (CM 49).

Sometimes we have to grant that there may be sources of joy in the different religions, in parallel to the joy that we get from Jesus-experience. This was indicated already by Vatican II and EG clearly acknowledges it. As if to confirm the same point Gandhi says: “…I began to understand the Christian teaching, and the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount echoed something I had learnt in childhood and something which seemed to be part of my being and which I felt was being acted up to in the daily life around me… I said to myself… It is that Sermon which has endeared Jesus to me” (Message 64-65). Gandhi even went a step further and attested to the fact that he is journeying Godward. At least on the basis of such a living exemplar as Mahatma Gandhi and his expectations of the Indian Christians, which are exactly echoed by our Holy Father today, shall we give top priority to the real experience of joy as the valid method of the new evangelization? That will rally make every one of us to be missionary disciples!