Martyria a nowa ewangelizacja

Abstract

Analysis of the word martyria used in the Bible leads one to the conclusion that we can be Jesus’ witnesses when we follow Him as the Witness of the Eternal Father: “Who has ever seen me has seen the Father [...] Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?” (John 14, 8-10). This is why Rev. Franciszek Blachnicki, speaking about the testimony in the life of a Christian, referred to the dialogic structure of the person, pointing to the fact that the self-revelation of the Father to the Son becomes a model of testimony with which the Holy Spirit sends us to the world. He also emphasized the need for a personalist opening, as the inside of a man as an independent, sovereign subject, is inaccessible to another person as long as he himself is not eager to enter a dialog and say something – reveal the mystery of his inside. Our ability to testify has its source in the anointing with the Holy Spirit, whose model is the anointing of Jesus during His baptism in the Jordan. It leads to “release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind” (cf. Luke, 4, 18), from which the founder of the Crusade for the Liberation of Man draws the conclusion that “action for liberation always has to go together with evangelization” At the same time Rev. Blachnicki stressed that from the catechumens who had not yet been baptized the Church in its first centuries required a testimony of faith that was a confirmation of their entering the way of the Lord’s apostles; this thought is continued by the modern Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults. Involvement of the founder of the Light-Life movement in evangelization, even before the concept of the new evangelization became popular, may be considered its exemplification, which is proven by the 30th anniversary of the Institute of Pastoral-Liturgical Formation of the Catholic University of Lublin.