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tionship with Christ and his Church. Christ himself stated, “The Son of
Man did not come to be served but to serve” (Mt 20:28). Imitating Christ’s
servant leadership, exemplified beautifully in the washing of the disciples’
feet at the Last Supper, leads us closer to him. This is often true for youth
and young adults performing acts of charity and service, attending retreats,
prayer, bible study, talks, and reflections. Social justice and direct service
opportunities can be powerful experiences that lead people to intimacy
with Christ. “Service, when understood as serving Christ in others and as a
means to share the Gospel, has the ability to bring the server and the one
being served closer to Christ.”
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Those who will be his disciples are already seeking him (see Jn 1:38),
but it is the Lord who calls them: “Follow me” (Mt 9:9; see Mk 1:17). This
encounter must be constantly renewed by personal testimony, the procla-
mation of the
kerygma
(“the message of salvation of the paschal mystery of
Jesus Christ”
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), and the missionary action of the community. Without the
kerygma
, the other aspects of this process of evangelization are condemned
to sterility, and we run the risk of having hearts not truly converted to the
Lord. Only out of the
kerygma
does the possibility of true Christian initi-
ation occur. Therefore, the Church should work to ensure the continual
proclamation of the truth of the Gospel, including opportunities outside
of the Mass for the Body of Christ to share their personal experiences of
Christ. Each member of the Church is called to connect his or her experi-
ence of Christ with the overall history of salvation.
“The witness of Christians, whose lives are filled with the hope of
Christ, opens the hearts and minds of those around them to Christ. This
openness to Christ is a moment of conversion (
metanoia
).”
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It is the moment
in which a person’s life is reoriented to Christ, when he or she—by grace—
enters into a relationship with him and thus enters into a relationship with
the community of believers, the Church. In
Ecclesia in America
, conversion is
explained as having an intimate link to the encounter with Christ:
An encounter with the Lord brings about a profound transformation
in all who do not close themselves off from him. The first impulse
coming from this transformation is to communicate to others the
richness discovered in the experience of the encounter. This does
not mean simply teaching what we have come to know but also, like
the Samaritan woman, enabling others to encounter Jesus personally:
“Come and see” (Jn 4:29). The result will be the same as that which