This morning when I woke up I saw something I have never seen before in a Pope Tweet. At the bottom of the Tweet it said (EG 266).

“With Jesus our life becomes full. With him everything makes sense. (EG 266)” – Pope Francis on Twitter | www.ThePopeTweets.com

My first thought was one of fear thinking “Oh no, did he add some new characters to his tweet and this is some error code that printed out with them?”  The first thing I did was check his Twitter account and sure enough, there it was… (EG 266).  So my next thought is… “What on earth is EG 266?“. So I used Google to find my answer and surprisingly, I found nothing on (EG 266). So I turned to my faithful knowledgeable living Google, who is also my friend, Justin Stroh.  This is what he shared with me.

“His Exhortation -Evangelii Gaudium : Apostolic Exhortation on the Proclamation of the Gospel in Today’s World (24 November 2013).” CLICK HERE TO READ IT

Then he gave me the paragraph the Tweet was taken from and which is referenced.

266. But this conviction has to be sustained by our own constantly renewed experience of savouring Christ’s friendship and his message. It is impossible to persevere in a fervent evangelization unless we are convinced from personal experience that it is not the same thing to have known Jesus as not to have known him, not the same thing to walk with him as to walk blindly, not the same thing to hear his word as not to know it, and not the same thing to contemplate him, to worship him, to find our peace in him, as not to. It is not the same thing to try to build the world with his Gospel as to try to do so by our own lights. We know well that with Jesus life becomes richer and that with him it is easier to find meaning in everything. This is why we evangelize. A true missionary, who never ceases to be a disciple, knows that Jesus walks with him, speaks to him, breathes with him, works with him. He senses Jesus alive with him in the midst of the missionary enterprise. Unless we see him present at the heart of our missionary commitment, our enthusiasm soon wanes and we are no longer sure of what it is that we are handing on; we lack vigour and passion. A person who is not convinced, enthusiastic, certain and in love, will convince nobody. “

Well there you have it folks. The (EG 266) Mystery is solved!

Justin and I used to travel the country evangelizing together in a Catholic group called Radix. He has a huge heart for sharing the faith and is very knowledgeable on the teachings of our Faith. Check out his weekly session on the Catechism on this website. http://catechismninja.blogspot.com/

Thank you Justin Stroh!