Pope John Paul II spent his pontificate giving us a "springtime of a new evangelization". He added to the Rosary the Luminous Mysteries, which are the mysteries of evangelization.
After spring comes summer, when the fruits grow out of what has blossomed in the spring. Every good work that John Paul II began will bear abundant fruit through Benedict XVI.
By praying the Rosary using the Mysteries of Light, we help the Lord and the Blessed Mother (to whom John Paul II has consecrated the whole world) prepare the way for the summer of evangelization in the Church's history of tomorrow. In the homily Benedict XVI delivered on April 25, 2005, at the start of his pontificate, while visiting the sepulcher of the Apostle to the Gentiles in the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls, he quoted St. Paul:
"Through [Jesus Christ] we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among all the nations" (Romans 1:5).
Dear Friends, as Successor of Peter, I am here to revive in faith this "grace of apostleship," as God, according to another expression of the Apostle to the Gentiles, has entrusted to me "anxiety for all the churches" (2 Corinthians 11:28). ... My beloved and venerated predecessor John Paul II, a missionary Pope whose activity, understood in this way, witnessed in more than 100 apostolic trips beyond the confines of Italy, is truly inimitable. What was it that drove him to such dynamism if not the very love of Christ that transformed St. Paul's life (cf. 2 Corinthians 5:14)? May the Lord infuse such a love also in me so that I will not remain calm in face of the urgencies of the proclamation of the Gospel in today's world.
The Church by her nature is missionary; her primary task is evangelization. The ecumenical Second Vatican Council dedicated to missionary activity the decree called precisely, Ad Gentes, in which we are reminded that "[t]he Apostles themselves, on whom the Church was founded, following in the footsteps of Christ, 'preached the word of truth and begot churches.' It is the duty of their successors to make this task endure 'so that the word of God may run and be glorified (2 Thessalonians 3:1) and the kingdom of God be proclaimed and established throughout the world."
At the beginning of the third millennium, the Church feels with renewed force that Christ's missionary mandate is of more current importance than ever.
... the call on the road to Damascus led Paul precisely to this: to make Christ the center of his life, leaving everything for the sublime knowledge of him and of his ministry of love, committing himself later to proclaim him to all, especially pagans "to the glory of his name" (Romans 1:5). Christ's passion led him to preach the Gospel not only with the word, but also with his very life, which was ever more conformed to that of his Lord.
