Pope Benedict XVI emphasized the importance of evangelization for all members of the Catholic Church during his recent trip to Brazil, his first as pope to Latin America.

Reaffirming the late Pope John Paul II’s appeal for a “new evangelization,” Pope Benedict called for promotion on every level of the church of a “methodical evangelization aimed at personal and communal fidelity to Christ.” While this was directed immediately to Latin America — where aggressive proselytizing by evangelical sects has drawn many Catholics from the church — his message also has meaning for the church throughout the world.

Every baptized person receives from Christ the “missionary mandate” to “go into all the world and preach the Gospel to the whole creation,” Pope Benedict said, quoting St. Mark’s Gospel. And “what a magnificent vocation” this is, the pope said.

What does this vocation entail?

The church’s mission is to carry out Christ’s mission, the pope said, and “Christ’s mission is accomplished in love.” Christ “kindled in the world the fire of God’s love,” he explained, and the church “has been sent forth to spread Christ’s love throughout the world so that individuals and peoples ‘may have life, and have it abundantly.’ ”

He added: “The church considers herself the disciple and missionary of this love: missionary only insofar as she is a disciple, capable of being attracted constantly and with renewed wonder by the God who has loved us and who loves us first.”

The pope pointed out that this work of evangelization does not mean proselytizing. “The church does not engage in proselytism,” he said. Rather the church “grows by attraction” — just as “Christ ‘draws all to himself’ by the power of his love, culminating in the sacrifice of the cross, so the church fulfills her mission to the extend that, in union with Christ, she accomplishes every one of her works in spiritual and practical imitation of the love of her Lord.”

Pope Benedict also addressed in several talks how believers can be evangelizers.

By living charity day in and day out, he said, Christians release “an irresistible power, which is the power of holiness.” He noted that “faith in Christ implies a way of living based on the twofold command to love God and neighbor.”

He also underscored the importance of faith formation for both young people and adults so they have “knowledge of the word of God” they are proclaiming. “Mature reflection on faith is a light for the path in life and a source of strength for witnessing to Christ,” he said.

He called for reaching out to and “seeking out those Catholics who have fallen away (from the church) and those who know little or nothing of Jesus Christ.” This can be done, he said, “by implementing a pastoral plan which welcomes them and helps them realize that the church is a privileged place of encounter with God and also through a continuing process of catechesis.”

To young people, the pope gave this challenge: “Be apostles of youth. Invite them to walk with you, to have the same experience of faith, hope and love; to encounter Jesus so that they may feel truly loved, accepted (and) able to realize their full potential.”

The pope also stressed the importance of the Eucharist in evangelization. The Eucharist “awakens in the Christian a strong desire to proclaim the Gospel and to bear witness to it in the world so as to build a more just and humane society,” he said. “From the Eucharist, in the course of the centuries, an immense wealth of charity has sprung forth, of sharing in the difficulties of others, of love and of justice.”

A disciple is one who “feels driven” to bring the good news of Jesus to others, Pope Benedict said. “Discipleship and mission are like two sides of a single coin: when the disciple is in love with Christ, he cannot stop proclaiming to the world that only in him do we find salvation. The disciple knows that without Christ there is no light, no hope, no love, no future.”