St Paul VI's other earth-shaking encyclical

Sent to Proclaim the Gospels
By Jim McManus CSSR,
Redemptorist Publications, 164pp, £12.99/$15

Pope Paul VI’s great encyclical on evangelisation, Evangelii Nuntiandi, written in 1975, was the spark for this book, which is timely, coming soon after his canonisation.

In seven chapters, Fr Jim McManus spells out what the universal call to be an evangeliser means in today’s world. He uses a variety of resources culled from Vatican II documents, and the writings of all the recent Popes – from Paul VI to Francis. The keys which unlock the riches of this book are a couple of paragraphs from Evangelii Nuntiandi: “Evangelising is in fact the grace and vocation proper to the Church, her deepest identity. She exists to evangelise …” and “May the world of our time, which is searching, sometimes with anguish, sometimes with hope, be enabled to receive the Good News not from evangelisers who are dejected, discouraged, impatient or anxious, but from ministers of the Gospel whose lives glow with fervour.”