Evangelizing While in Exile

By Fr. Olek Stirrat

During my time in the seminary, I once found myself confiding in my spiritual director. I say “confiding,” but it was more of a gentle moan, the sort one emits when one’s shoes pinch or one’s soul is feeling slightly askew. I expressed a nagging sense of unease about being in the place at all, and wondered aloud if this discomfort was, in the grand celestial scheme, a hint from the Almighty regarding my vocation. The old sage, bless him, didn’t bat an eyelash. With the serene air of a man who has seen many a jittery seminarian wobble on the high wire of discernment, he explained that such unease was, in fact, an excellent sign. After all, said he, no one is called to be a seminarian per se—seminaries being less a destination and more a sort of spiritual railway station en route to the priesthood. If one feels a bit off-kilter while waiting on the platform, it likely means the train is indeed coming.

This sense of unease or discomfort may also be applied to our existence more generally. Life itself is a sort of spiritual railway station en route to eternal life—no one is called to live in this world alone. In fact, we are all in exile in this world, which is an expression of our call to another. This is not an expression of a dualist approach to reality where this world is evil and the next life is good; nor is it an impetus to despair, but to realize that our life here in exile is hope-filled, since our expectations are recalibrated and our perspective is reframed. To realize that we are in exile is first to appreciate that we have a home and that our true homeland is in heaven (cf. Philippians 3:20). Hence, we should not get too comfortable here on earth—we were not made for it and so should not expect that our every desire will be fulfilled during our earthly pilgrimage! As St. Therese of Lisieux reminds us, “The world is thy ship, not thy home.” Thus, if we feel a sense of discomfort or unease on this pilgrimage, if we have a sense of urgency or drive toward more, this is all a manifestation that our hearts only find rest in the Lord in heaven.

In light of this, however, how should we live our lives here on earth while in exile? What does our pilgrimage to our heavenly home look like? Further, what does evangelization look like in such a context? This essay will look toward Scripture and Tradition for guidance on how to live in exile and draw from it the importance of friendship for evangelization.

Scripture and Tradition on Living in Exile

“To the exiles of the Dispersion… chosen and destined by God the Father and sanctified by the Spirit for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood: May grace and peace be multiplied to you” (1 Peter 1:1–2). So begins the first “Papal encyclical.”¹ The first Christians (in fact, all Christians), lived in exile, on pilgrimage to their homeland. They lived here on earth but their destiny and destination was heaven. St. Paul himself presents to us the exilic situation that we embody and the appropriate existential response:

if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. Here indeed we groan, and long to put on our heavenly dwelling.… For while we are still in this tent, we sigh with anxiety.… He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. So we are always of good courage; we know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. We are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. (2 Cor 5:1–2, 4–9)

St. Paul suggests that during this time of exile we must yearn for heaven, be people of courage, and aim to please God in everything. Perhaps the most famous description and defense of this Christian lifestyle in the early Church is an anonymous apologetic called The Letter to Diognetus. In this letter, the author describes the life of Christians living in the Roman Empire as unassuming, perhaps even sundry and perfunctory. They live amongst both Greeks and barbarians, following their customs and way of life. The distinguishing element of the early Christians, however, is that they “dwell in their own countries, but simply as sojourners. As citizens, they share in all things with others and yet endure all things as if foreigners. Every foreign land is to them as their native country, and every land of their birth as a land of strangers.”²

They are in the world, but not of it. They obey the prescribed laws, while also going beyond the law by living their life in accord with the law of God. They live a more demanding way of life, by loving to the extent that Christ did and by laying down their lives for their friends. They face opposition and are assailed by both “the Jews as foreigners, and are persecuted by the Greeks; yet those who hate them are unable to assign any reason for their hatred.”³

The letter goes on to describe the early Christians as the soul of the world. As “[t]he soul dwells in the body, yet is not of the body; [so] Christians dwell in the world, yet are not of the world.”⁴ As a soul is the life principle of the body and permeates throughout it, Christians are the life principle of the world and are scattered throughout the earth. Christians, as the Second Vatican Council describes it, are called to be the leaven of the world.⁵ And as leaven is dispersed throughout the dough, so Christians are indeed in the world, but their godliness remains invisible. In such a manner they “present Christ to the secular world not by showiness but simply by living as His disciples, transformed by grace and given perfect confidence by perfect hope.”⁶

In A Man for All Seasons, Thomas More encourages the precocious and politically ambitious Richie Rich to become a teacher. Richard responds, “If I was, who would know it?” to which Thomas responds “You. Your pupils. Your friends. God. Not a bad public, that. And a quiet life.”⁷ So it is with the evangelical work of Christians, their work may remain invisible, and yet it bears fruit. St. Augustine sums up the way we should hold ourselves in exile while yearning for our heavenly homeland, in a succinct and perspicacious manner, when he says, “In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity.”

The Centrality of Friendship

What about the question of evangelization in such a context? The crucial element of evangelization while in exile is friendship: Friendship with God and with others, for the heart of evangelization is not a strategy but a relationship. At its most authentic, evangelization is not merely the transmission of doctrine but the communication of a living encounter with the person of Jesus Christ.⁸ Friendship is not instrumental to evangelization—it is essential. As Pope Benedict XVI noted, “Being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person.”⁹ That encounter often takes place not in dramatic conversions, but in the patient, consistent presence of a Christian friend. Through friendship with others we may communicate the love of God to them which is the inspiration for all of our evangelical efforts. “For if we have received the love which restores meaning to our lives, how can we fail to share that love with others?”¹⁰ Friendship provides the context in which the freedom of the other is honored, and the Gospel is proposed—not imposed. Further, people will only care about Christianity if they know they are cared for. This kind of trust is born when others recognize and acknowledge that another has their best interest at heart rather than his own.

Christ himself made friends through his evangelical ministry. He evangelized not primarily through large public addresses—though these were important—but through personal relationships. He called the disciples not simply to learn from Him but to be with Him (cf. Mark 3:14). He dined with sinners (cf. Luke 19:5–10), wept with friends (cf. John 11:35), and entrusted the future of the Church to those He had walked with closely. His evangelization was one of deep friendship. Pope Francis writes in Evangelii Gaudium, “Genuine spiritual accompaniment always begins and flourishes in the context of service to the mission of evangelization.”¹¹ Evangelization, he continues, “is also supportive, standing by people at every step of the way, no matter how difficult or lengthy this may prove to be. It is familiar with patient expectation and apostolic endurance. Evangelization consists mostly of patience and disregard for constraints of time.”¹²

Today’s Challenging Situation

Such friendship must be inspired in others today since our problematic exilic context is nihilistic, implying a sense that nothing makes sense or matters; everything is meaningless. In this context, we must not fall into despair, contempt, or dourness but recommit ourselves to the pilgrimage of holiness.

Just as it always has, our heavenly focus will seem senseless to those who can’t imagine anything better than what the world has to offer. But remember we are surrounded by senselessness and nihilism, and we are surrounded by people who are dissatisfied and even frightened by what our civilization has become but who can’t imagine any alternative. It is precisely in this time and place that the apparent insanity of holiness will be most appealing. Secular sanity has been tried and found seriously wanting.¹³

In light of this, however, we must not forget, “It’s not our worldly circumstances that determine our relationship with the Lord; it’s how we relate to those circumstances.… We are not inert repositories of God’s gifts, like a safe deposit box. Rather, we are meant to go out into the world and, through our labors, spread those gifts.”¹⁴ Analogously, as Christians, we are not only called to be joyful but to spread joy. As Chesterton comments, “Charity is not giving rewards to the deserving, but happiness to the unhappy.”¹⁵ In a similar vein, Oscar Wilde once quipped, “Some people spread joy wherever they go, others whenever they go.” The life of a Christian must be characterized by the former!

We do not choose our circumstances, or crosses, or problems—they choose us. Christ Himself did not “choose” the Cross, but the Father’s will. Even though Christ stumbled on the road to Calvary, He always moved forward; “He did not wallow; He did not complain. This pilgrimage, from Jerusalem to Golgotha, is the example par excellence of our calling both to suffering and to redemption.”¹⁶

Cling to Hope

Our life here in exile is a sign of hope for a more peaceful homeland in heaven. However, while in exile, we can form more Christ-centred friendships and spread joy wherever we go. What we need now is to remain hope-filled, and not to despair or lament our situation, but to always keep our eyes fixed on Christ, who is the same yesterday, today and forever.

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Fr. Olek Stirrat, born in Poland, is a priest of the Archdiocese of Adelaide. He was ordained in 2022 and is currently ministering in South Australia.

1. Scott Hahn and Brandon McGinley, Catholics in Exile: Biblical Wisdom for the Journey Home (Steubenville, OH: Emmaus Road Publishing, 2023), p. 1.

2. Mathetes, “Epistle to Diognetusi,” ch. 5, in Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1, trans. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson; ed. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson, and A. Cleveland Coxe (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1885). Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight.

3. Ibid.

4. Ibid.

5. See, for instance, Lumen Gentium, #31.

6. Hahn and McGinley, Catholics in Exile: Biblical Wisdom for the Journey Home, p. 1.

7. R. Jared Staudt, “Listen to St. More—Be a Teacher,” National Catholic Register, September 7, 2022.

8. See, for instance, John Paul II, Catechesi Tradendae, §1.

9. Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est, #1.

10. Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium, #8.

11. Francis, Evangelii Gaudium, #173.

12. Ibid., #264.

13. Hahn and McGinley, Catholics in Exile: Biblical Wisdom for the Journey Home, p. 136.

14. Ibid., p. 163.

15. Illustrated London News, Dec. 8, 1906.

16. Hahn and McGinley, Catholics in Exile: Biblical Wisdom for the Journey Home, p. 179.