Experiencing God - Invitation to Wholeness 77

"Nazareth!" exclaimed Nathanael. "Can anything good come from Nazareth?" "Come and see for yourself," Philip replied.
Gospel of John

In the Gospel quote above from John we find Philip who has just become a disciple of Christ, eagerly telling his best friend Nathaniel about Jesus.  Nathanial, or Bartholomew as he is called in the other three Gospels, is not impressed.  In fact, he is very skeptical.  "How could the Messiah, the one foretold by Moses and the prophets come from such an unlikely place as Nazareth."

Nazareth was a town on the crossroads.  People from different cultures and religions would pass through this small community on the way to other places.  So there was this perception that the religious teachers in this outbound community were not very orthodox in their understanding and interpretation of the law.  "How could anything good come from such a place?" is Nathaniel's response. 

Philip's response to his friend is one well worth noting.  "Come and See".  Come and see for yourself who this Jesus is, and who He claims to be. 

Instead of arguing with his friend over matters of rule, law, interpretations, or justifying his own conclusions about Jesus, Philip invites Nathaniel to "come and see".

Have you ever been invited somewhere where your original thoughts may have been questioning or skeptical?  I was not raised Catholic or Christian.  In fact, I was not exposed to any religion while growing up as a child and young adult.  When I began to work in Halifax at eighteen years of age, I became exposed to all kinds of people with all kinds of religious ideas, and I must admit that I was skeptical of many of them, some for good reasons.  But while boarding with a family in the South end of Halifax, I began to observe something that caught my attention.  The family I was living with practiced their Catholic Christian faith.  My best friend there and fellow boarder was a student at St. Mary's university, and one Sunday evening, he was getting ready to go somewhere, so I enquired with him about where he was going.  He said that he was going to the folk mass at the university: And he invited me to come along.  "Come and see". 

This simple invitation changed the whole direction of my life from that point on.  In some six months to a year after this invitation, I became a baptized member of this Catholic faith community.

What Nathaniel discovered, and in my own way what I discovered, is that God places in every heart a desire and yearning to personally know Him.  As St. Augustine discovered himself: "God has made us for Himself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in Him."

The New Evangelization, if you examine it carefully, is this invitation to "Come and See".  Come and see for yourself that which brings life.  Be renewed personally by a rediscovery of your own faith in Christ through that personal experience and encounter with Him on a daily basis.  Invite others to "come and see", so that they may have an opportunity to share in the abundant life of the Spirit.

Let me present just one of the challenges that our Archbishop is presenting to all of us in respect to the New Evangelization.  He writes:
a.  Identify and encourage the living signs of the Gospel of life in your parish and community.
b. Look around and see what is actually going on and celebrate the daily lived commitment of those who make life more valuable, accepted and precious.
c.  Become known for who you are, and not for what you are against.

Nathaniel came to Jesus and accepted Him as Messiah and Lord, not because he was convinced by Philip or anyone else, but because Jesus spoke to his inner most being.  We have a need to know God personally in our lives, and to be united with that love which He offered.  In this way, we see the world differently, we are changed and made more whole.