Calling All Witnesses

In a recent address, the Pope had the following exhortation for members of the lay faithful:

The man who reawakens in himself the question of God opens himself to hope, trustworthy hope, which makes it worth his while to take on the effort of journey in the present (cf. Spe Salvi, 1).

How can the question of God be reawakened so as to make it the fundamental question? Dear friends, if it is true that “being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a Person” (Deus Caritas Est, 1), the question of God is reawakened by the encounter with those who have the gift of faith, with those who have a vital relationship with the Lord.  God is known through men and women who know him–the road to Him passes, concretely, thorough those who have met Him.  Here your role as lay faithful is particularly important. […]You are called to offer a transparent witness of the relevance of the question of God in all fields of thought and action. In the family, in work, in politics, and in economics, contemporary man needs to see with his own eyes and touch with his own hands how, with God or without God, everything changes.