EVANGELII GAUDIUM - page 11

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yesterday and today and forever” (
Heb
13:8), yet
his riches and beauty are inexhaustible. He is for
ever young and a constant source of newness.
The Church never fails to be amazed at “the
depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge
of God” (
Rom
11:33). Saint John of the Cross
says that “the thicket of God’s wisdom and
knowledge is so deep and so broad that the soul,
however much it has come to know of it, can
always penetrate deeper within it”.
7
Or as Saint
Irenaeus writes: “By his coming, Christ brought
with him all newness”.
8
With this newness he
is always able to renew our lives and our com-
munities, and even if the Christian message has
known periods of darkness and ecclesial weak-
ness, it will never grow old. Jesus can also break
through the dull categories with which we would
enclose him and he constantly amazes us by his
divine creativity. Whenever we make the effort
to return to the source and to recover the original
freshness of the Gospel, new avenues arise, new
paths of creativity open up, with different forms
of expression, more eloquent signs and words
with new meaning for today’s world. Every form
of authentic evangelization is always “new”.
12. Though it is true that this mission demands
great generosity on our part, it would be wrong
to see it as a heroic individual undertaking, for it
7
Spiritual Canticle
, 36, 10.
8
Adversus Haereses
, IV, c. 34, n. 1: PG 7, pars prior, 1083:
“
Omnem novitatem attulit, semetipsum afferens
”.
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