The Catechetical Review - Communicating Christ for a New Evangelization

Madeleine Delbrêl: The Missionary and the Church

Authored by Mary Ann Wiesinger-Puig in Issue #6.2 of Catechetical Review
By the time Venerable Madeleine Delbrêl was 20, she had converted to Catholicism from the strict atheism of her youth. Nine years later, in 1933, she was living as a missionary with two companions in Ivry, “the first Communist city and more or less the capital of Communism in France.” She decided to live in this community because she remembered the pain of not knowing God; her goal was not simply to evangelize them, but to befriend them. She lived there until she died in 1964. Venerable Madeleine Delbrêl had an exceptional love for the Church and perceived that there was a profound link between Christ, the Church, and evangelization. “The work of the Church is the salvation of the world; the world cannot not be saved except by the Church.” In our current atmosphere of skepticism towards structures of authority and of the Church herself, she is a voice that reminds us how to love the Church, and how to bring Christ to the world in and through her. Madeleine considered each person in the Church to be an essential part of the Church’s mission; there was no one who did not have a part to play. “We are not the Church unless we are the whole Church: each member belongs to the whole body.” Each person’s part was specific and vital: “And we are not the whole Church unless we are in precisely the place meant for us in the Church, which is the same as saying that we are precisely in our place in the world, where the Church is made present through us.” These words are comforting and hopeful, but we always seem to struggle to find our purpose and direction. Delbrêl’s view is that we do not have to go crazy finding exotic projects: “Mission means doing the very work of Christ wherever we happen to be. We will not be the Church and salvation will not reach the ends of the earth unless we help save the people in the very situations in which we live.” These situations, these people where we live, have been entrusted to us. When we don’t take this mission seriously, the world suffers. Her words profoundly challenge me. I am often dreaming of my next “important project,” but fail to see the people and the situations that are very truly before my eyes.

The rest of this online article is available for current subscribers.

Start your subscription today!


This article is from The Catechetical Review (Online Edition ISSN 2379-6324) and may be copied for catechetical purposes only. It may not be reprinted in another published work without the permission of The Catechetical Review by contacting [email protected]

Articles from the Most Recent Issue

Children's Catechesis: The ABCs of Children’s Catechesis
By Sr. Mary Michael Fox, OP
As children, many of us learned the “Alphabet Song.” It is a universally known jingle that helps small children learn the ABCs of the English language. Other cultures use a different tune but the purpose is the same. At the start, a child merely repeats the sounds sung to him. In due time, he gradually learns that the sounds have corresponding... Read more
Youth & Young Adult Ministry: The Intentional Community of WorkCamp
By Christine Najarian
“Whenever you are united, you have marvelous strength. Whenever you are enthused about life in common, you are capable of great sacrifices for others and for the community.” [1] Immediately upon reading Pope Francis’ words in Christus Vivit (“Christ Is Alive”), I had them highlighted and underlined, with “WORKCAMP!” written emphatically in the... Read more
Applied Theology of the Body: Gender Ideology and Homosexuality
By Dr. Donald P. Asci
Pope St. John Paul II proclaimed the theology of the body (TOB) as perennial truths revealed by God through ancient biblical texts, but he also noted that this pedagogy of the body “takes on particular importance for contemporary man, whose science in the fields of bio-physiology and bio-medicine is very advanced” (TOB 59:3). [i] While he... Read more

Pages

Watch Tutorial Videos

We've put together several quick and easy tutorial videos to show you how to use this website.

Watch Now