Today, the Vatican Press Office published the Holy Father’s message for the 87th World Mission Day which will be observed on Sunday, October 20, 2013.
Message
of the Holy Father, Pope Francis
for the 87th World Mission Day
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
This year, as we celebrate World Mission Day, the Year
of Faith, which is an important opportunity to strengthen our friendship
with the Lord and our journey as a Church that preaches the Gospel with
courage, is drawing to a close. From this perspective, I would like to propose
some reflections.
Faith is God’s precious gift, which opens our mind to
know and love him. He wants to enter into relationship with us and allow us to
participate in his own life in order to make our life more meaningful, better
and more beautiful. God loves us! Faith, however, needs to be accepted, it
needs our personal response, the courage to entrust ourselves to God, to live
his love and be grateful for his infinite mercy. It is a gift, not reserved for
a few but offered with generosity. Everyone should be able to experience the
joy of being loved by God, the joy of salvation! It is a gift that one cannot
keep to oneself, but it is to be shared. If we want to keep it only to
ourselves, we will become isolated, sterile and sick Christians. The
proclamation of the Gospel is part of being disciples of Christ and it is a
constant commitment that animates the whole life of the Church. Missionary outreach is a clear sign of the
maturity of an ecclesial community (Verbum Domini, 95). Each
community is mature when it professes
faith, celebrates it with joy during the liturgy, lives charity, proclaims the
Word of God endlessly, leaves it’s own people to take the good news to the peripheries, especially to those who
have not yet had the opportunity to know Christ. The strength of our faith, at
a personal and community level can be measured by the ability to communicate it
to others, to spread and live it in charity, to witness to it before those we
meet and those who share the path of life with us.
The Year of Faith, fifty years after the beginning
of the Second Vatican Council, motivates the entire Church towards a renewed
awareness of its presence in the contemporary world and its mission among
peoples and nations. Missionary spirit is not only about geographical
territories, but about peoples, cultures and individuals, because the boundaries of faith do not only cross
places and human traditions, but the heart of each man and each woman. The
Second Vatican Council emphasized in a special way how the missionary task,
that of broadening the boundaries of faith, belongs to every baptized person
and all Christian communities; since the
people of God lives in communities, especially in dioceses and parishes, and
becomes somehow visible in them, it is up to these to witness Christ before the
nations (Ad gentes, 37). Each
community is therefore challenged, and invited to make its own, the mandate
entrusted by Jesus to the Apostles, to be his witnesses in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria and to the ends of
the earth (Acts 1:8) and this, not as a secondary aspect of
Christian life, but as its essential aspect: we are all invited to walk the
streets of the world with our brothers and sisters, proclaiming and witnessing
to our faith in Christ and making ourselves heralds of his Gospel. I invite
Bishops, Priests, Presbyteral and Pastoral Councils, and each person and group
responsible in the Church to give a prominent position to this missionary
dimension in formation and pastoral programmes, in the understanding that their
apostolic commitment is not complete unless it aims at bearing witness to
Christ before the nations and before all peoples. This missionary aspect is not
merely a programmatic dimension in Christian life, but it is also a
paradigmatic dimension that affects all aspects of Christian life.
The work of evangelization often finds obstacles, not
only externally, but also from within the ecclesial community. Sometimes there
is lack of fervour, joy, courage and hope in proclaiming the Message of Christ
to all and in helping the people of our time to witness an encounter with him.
Sometimes, it is still thought that proclaiming the truth of the Gospel means
an assault on freedom. Paul VI speaks eloquently on this matter: It would be... an error to impose something
on the consciences of our brethren. But to propose to their consciences the
truth of the Gospel and salvation in Jesus Christ, with complete clarity and
with total respect for free options which it presents... is a tribute to this
freedom (Evangelii Nuntiandi, 80). We must always have the courage
and the joy of proposing, with respect, an encounter with Christ, and being
heralds of his Gospel. Jesus came among us to show us the way of salvation and
he entrusted to us the mission to make it known to all peoples, even to the
ends of the earth. All too often, we see that it is violence, lies and mistakes
that are emphasized and proposed. It is urgent in our time to announce and
witness to the goodness of the Gospel, and this from within the Church itself.
It is important never to forget a fundamental principle for every evangelizer:
one cannot announce Christ without the Church. Evangelization is not an
isolated individual or private act; it is always ecclesial. Paul VI wrote, When an unknown preacher, catechist or
Pastor, preaches the Gospel, gathers the little community together, administers
a Sacrament, even alone, he is carrying out an ecclesial act. He acts not in virtue of a mission which he attributes
to himself or by a personal inspiration, but in union with the mission of the
Church and in her name (EN, 60). And this gives strength to the mission and
makes every missionary and evangelizer feel never alone, but part of a single
Body animated by the Holy Spirit.
In our era, the widespread mobility and facility of
communication through new media have mingled people, knowledge and experience.
For work reasons, entire families move from one continent to another;
professional and cultural exchanges, tourism, and other phenomena have also led
to great movements of peoples. This makes it difficult, even for the parish
community, to know who lives permanently or temporarily in the area. More and
more, in large areas of what were traditionally Christian regions, the number
of those who are unacquainted with the faith, or indifferent to the religious
dimension or animated by other beliefs, is increasing. Therefore it is not
infrequent that some of the baptized make lifestyle choices that lead them away
from faith, thus making them need a new
evangelization. To all this is added the fact that a large part of humanity
has not yet been reached by the good news of Jesus Christ. We also live in a
time of crisis that touches various sectors of existence, not only the economy,
finance, food security, or the environment, but also those involving the deeper
meaning of life and the fundamental values that animate it. Even human
coexistence is marked by tensions and conflicts that cause insecurity and
difficulty in finding the right path to a stable peace. In this complex
situation, where the horizon of the present and future seems threatened by
menacing clouds, it is necessary to proclaim courageously and in every
situation, the Gospel of Christ, a message of hope, reconciliation, communion,
a proclamation of God's closeness, his mercy, his salvation, and a proclamation
that the power of God’s love is able to overcome the darkness of evil and guide
us on the path of goodness. The men and women of our time need the secure light
that illuminates their path and that only the encounter with Christ can give.
Let us bring to the world, through our witness, with love, the hope given by
faith! The Church’s missionary spirit is not about proselytizing, but the
testimony of a life that illuminates the path, which brings hope and love. The
Church – I repeat once again – is not a relief organization, an enterprise or
an NGO, but a community of people, animated by the Holy Spirit, who have lived
and who are living the wonder of the encounter with Jesus Christ and want to
share this experience of deep joy, the message of salvation that the Lord gave
us. It is the Holy Spirit who guides the Church on this path.
I would like to encourage everyone to be a bearer of the
good news of Christ and I am grateful especially to missionaries, to the Fidei
Donum priests, men and women religious and lay faithful - more and more
numerous – who by accepting the Lord's call, leave their homelands to serve the
Gospel in different lands and cultures. But I would also like to emphasize that
these same young Churches are engaging generously in sending missionaries to
the Churches that are in difficulty - not infrequently Churches of ancient
Christian tradition – and thus they bring the freshness and enthusiasm with
which they live the faith, a faith that renews life and gives hope. To live in
this universal dimension, responding to the mandate of Jesus: Go therefore and make disciples of all
nations (Mt 28, 19) is something enriching for each particular
Church, each community, because sending missionaries is never a loss, but a
gain. I appeal to all those who feel this calling to respond generously to the
Holy Spirit, according to your state in life, and not to be afraid to be
generous with the Lord. I also invite Bishops, religious families, communities
and all Christian groups to support, with foresight and careful discernment,
the missionary call ad gentes and to assist Churches that need priests,
religious and laity, thus strengthening the Christian community. And this
concern should also be present among Churches that are part of the same
Episcopal Conference or Region, because it is important that Churches rich in
vocations help more generously those that lack them.
At the same time I urge missionaries, especially the Fidei Donum priests and laity, to live with joy their precious service in the Churches to which they are sent and to bring their joy and experience to the Churches from which they come, remembering how Paul and Barnabas at the end of their first missionary journey reported what God had done with them and how he had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles (Acts 14:27). They can become a path to a kind of return of faith, bringing the freshness of the young Churches to Churches of ancient Christian tradition, and thus helping them to rediscover the enthusiasm and the joy of sharing the faith in an exchange that is mutually enriching in the journey of following the path of the Lord.
The concern for all the Churches that the Bishop of Rome shares with his brother Bishops finds an important expression in the activity of the Pontifical Mission Societies, which are meant to animate and deepen the missionary conscience of every baptized Christian, and of every community, by reminding them of the need for a more profound missionary formation of the whole People of God and by encouraging the Christian community to contribute to the spread of the Gospel in the world.
Finally I wish to say a word about those Christians who, in various parts of the world, experience difficulty in openly professing their faith and in enjoying the legal right to practice it in a worthy manner. They are our brothers and sisters, courageous witnesses - even more numerous than the martyrs of the early centuries - who endure with apostolic perseverance many contemporary forms of persecution. Quite a few also risk their lives to remain faithful to the Gospel of Christ. I wish to reaffirm my closeness in prayer to individuals, families and communities who suffer violence and intolerance, and I repeat to them the consoling words of Jesus: Take courage, I have overcome the world (Jn 16:33).
Benedict XVI expressed the hope that: The word of the Lord may spread rapidly and
be glorified everywhere (2 Thes 3:1); may this Year of Faith increasingly strengthen our relationship with
Christ the Lord, since only in him is there the certitude for looking to the
future and the guarantee of an authentic and lasting love (Porta fidei,
15). This is my wish for World Mission Day this year. I cordially bless
missionaries and all those who accompany and support this fundamental
commitment of the Church to proclaim the Gospel to all the ends of the earth.
Thus will we, as ministers and missionaries of the Gospel, experience the delightful and comforting joy of
evangelizing (Evangelii Nuntiandi, 80).
From the Vatican
May 19, 2013
Solemnity of Pentecost
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