Fides ex auditu. Nakierowanie przepowiadania misyjnego na wzbudzanie wiary jako realizacja podstawowego celu działalności misyjnej. Próba zarysu problematyki w kontekście współczesnym

Abstract

The author discusses links between the ministry of the word and missionary work in the modern world. Based on the doctrine of Feliks Zapłata, the father of Polish missiology, the paper demonstrates the significance of the ministry of the word in missionary work. The ministry along with the ministry of love and grace form a triad which in practice expresses the essence of missionary work. Then the author goes on to consider the concept of religious conversion with reference to the goal of Church missions. The following section deals with catechumenate-oriented preaching, which is instrumental in the faith growing process. Next, the author takes a closer look at missionary preaching while presenting its two dimensions that need to complement each other: a positive dimension and a polemic one. The latter has many aspects related to the numerous problems that a believer has to face today. Some of the other issues the author focuses on include the inevitability of polemics with the pagan world, polemics with fundamentalist atheism and problems resulting from trends currently observed in the western world. Through globalisation processes and the mass media among others, the trends are also present in environments devoid of Christian traditions; those include silent apostasy, fifth columns in Catholic institutions and useful idiots among the clergy. Subsequently, the author touches upon the so called new evangelisation in the missionary context. He notes that the term in church documents has two different, but complementary, meanings. One of its assumptions is that the new evangelisation in the missionary context is aimed at those who have moved away from the faith for various reasons and who are referred to as the lapsi. Summing up, all this points to the need to conduct further missiological studies taking into account today’s problems of the Church and the world.