Mission is love made into deeds

Pope Leo, who dreams of a «new missionary age» and wants to rekindle and «to renew in ourselves the fire of our missionary vocation», has prepared a message to help us live the World Mission Sunday, which this year will be celebrated on October 18. He chose the theme One in Christ, United in Mission. More than a slogan, it is a summary of the theology of mission.

Indeed, mission is carried out around Jesus and as a community of those baptized in the name of the Holy Trinity, of whom we are a mysterious and loving presence in the world. Hence, mission is always Christological and ecumenical in its very essence.

One in Christ

The American Pope reminds us that «the mystery of union with Christ lies at the heart of mission». Indeed, Jesus shared his mission with his missionary disciples during the Last Supper. In his priestly prayer, Jesus reminds the Father: «As you sent me into the world, so I sent them into the world» (John 17:18).

Mission is not an activity reserved exclusively for missionary institutes, nor is it the project of individual missionaries, furtive hunters of souls for the Kingdom. Mission belongs to God – who reveals his Trinitarian love through the life, message and Paschal mystery of Jesus – and every baptized person participates in this service to the world.

The Council Fathers wrote in the Decree Ad gentes on the missionary activity of the Church that «The pilgrim Church is missionary by her very nature, since it is from the mission of the Son and the mission of the Holy Spirit that she draws her origin, in accordance with the decree of God the Father» (AG 2).

«This decree, however, flows from the "fount - like love" or charity of God the Father who, being the "principle without principle" from whom the Son is begotten and Holy Spirit proceeds through the Son, freely creating us on account of His surpassing and merciful kindness and graciously calling us moreover to share with Him His life and His cry, has generously poured out, and does not cease to pour out still, His divine goodness», the document continues.

In the same vein, Leo recalls that the mission of the Church has the objective «to make Christ’s love visible», while at the same time extending an invitation «to encounter Him». The Good News that mission offers to the world is, in the Pope’s words, «the Gospel of God’s faithful love, which became flesh in the face and life of Jesus Christ.». Or, in other words, the great evangelizing mission «is always a work of love».

Daniel Comboni also emphasized the Christological and loving centrality of mission. In the Rules of 1871 he wrote: «[the students] will develop in themselves this most essential disposition by keeping their eyes fixed on Jesus Christ, loving him tenderly and seeking always to understand more fully the meaning of a God who died on the cross for the salvation of souls.» (Writings 2721).

United in mission

The second element of the Pope’s message – unity in mission – brings us once again to Jesus’ priestly prayer: «I in them and you in me, that they may be brought to perfection as one, that the world may know that you sent me, and that you loved them even as you loved me» (John 17:23). A divided Church is a counter-witness to the Gospel of Jesus.

Hence, dialogue (ecumenical – with all those baptized in the name of the Lord – and interreligious – with all people of good will) is the path of the missionary Church today.

Dialogue rooted in liturgical, theological and ecclesiological traditions is not easy, given the clearly marked divisions among the Christian Churches, which are historical, cultural, religious and sociological. Even the fact that I was unmarried was a source of confusion for some Protestant pastors in southern Ethiopia in the 1990s. One of them accused me of not believing in the Bible because I did not fulfil the command to «be fruitful and multiply»!

Hence, the Pope writes that «Evangelization is achieved when local communities cooperate with one another and when cultural, spiritual and liturgical differences are fully and harmoniously expressed in the same faith».

For this reason, Leo goes further, encouraging «all institutions in the Church to strengthen their sense of ecclesial missionary communion and to develop creative and concrete ways of cooperating with one another for and in the mission». The Church of South Sudan, which I served for seven years, was an ecumenical Church. War and persecution united Christians and Muslims in the search for peace.

Incarnate love

The dialogue of life, sharing the commitment to the common good, and embodying the Gospel of liberation today, especially among the impoverished and discarded, is a mission that requires neither theology nor ecclesiology nor even liturgy, but incarnate love: the love of the Most Holy Trinity for the least, embodied in Jesus of Nazareth.

Ultimately, as both the Second Vatican Council and Leo affirm, the baptized continue Christ’s mission, «a mission born of love, lived in love, and leading to love».

Daniel Comboni lived mission as a spousal relationship with the Africans. «The first love of my youth was for unhappy Africa» (Writings 3156), he proclaimed in his inspiring homily in Khartoum, and then added: «Rest assured that my soul responds to this with unlimited love forever and for each one of you» (Writings 3158).

This manifestation of God’s love takes place in many ways and through complementary forms: whether by going, by staying, or by sharing life, prayer and material goods. «Filled with admiration for men and women missionaries, I make a special appeal to the whole Church to join them in the mission of evangelization through the witness of our lives in Christ, through prayer and through our contributions to the missions», the Pope urges.

Fr. José Vieira, MCCJ