XI General Assembly, Cebul, Philippines – January 15-30, 2019.
The Mission of the Diocesan Presbyter – Rationale
INITIAL REMARKS:
It is decisive to be clear about the fundamentals of the mission. A word used today. It is said that everything is mission.
Every work, before being built, needs planning. The construction begins with the foundations that guarantee the support of the building. In the mission, it is no different. We need to make clear the foundations of God’s only mission.
The conception of mission is often reduced to doing things, drawing up schemes, projects, courses, visits, experiences, symposia and congresses. This is defined as a programmatic mission.
The mission throughout history has been delegated to congregations and groups with a missionary charism. The notion of mission as identity, essence, nature of all God’s people was lost. Some still have the conception that missionaries are only those who leave for another nation.
CONCEPT OF MISSION:
In its origin, the word “mission” means “sending”, “leaving”, “leaving”.
The Latin term missio also means to “liberate”, “let go”, “let go”: the sending “has everything to do” with freedom and liberation.
The Second Vatican Council recovered the theological conception of the nature of the mission.
MISSIO DEI:
This vision is based, in the concept of mission that has its origin in the “fontal love” of the Father, a love that leaves itself by its very nature to reach all (AG, 2).
The Mission, therefore, is one. It is from God, it is born in the heart of the Trinity. God is mission. The love of God is a love that does not contain itself, that overflows, that communicates, expands, expands, radiates, diffuses and leaves itself.
God himself sends himself through the mission of the Son and the Spirit. The Son is sent by the Father in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Impulse from the inside out:
The origin of all missionary movement is at the heart of the Trinity. The love of God the Father is not contained and communicated. God is mission and the mission comes from God because God is love. Mission refers to what God is and not, first, to what God does. Mission reveals God’s essence of communicating and creating relationship. Therefore, the mission would not at first have its own why, it would not arise first of a historical necessity, but it is a gratuitous impulse, from inside to outside, and of a way of being that have as origin and aim the divine life ( cf. DAp 348).
THE OUT OF GOD:
God is the first to come out of himself to free, save, heal …
“He saw the oppression of the people in Egypt, heard their cries and sufferings and came down to deliver them from the hands of the Egyptians and take them to a good and vast land, where milk and honey emanate (Ex 3: 7-8).
ECCLESIOLOGICAL AND MISSILOGICAL CONCEPTION
“The Church has no mission, but mission possesses the Church” (Prophetic Dialogues, Stephen Bevans and Roger Schroeder, p.34).
Mission is the very essence of God that has a Church that is destined to witness to Christ in the world and in history, to the ends of the earth and the end times. “Missionary action is the paradigm of every work of the Church” (EG 15).
How is mission born in us?
MEETING
The mission begins with listening to the voice of God. “Hear what the Spirit says the Churches.”
Encounter with Jesus Christ. It is a meeting that gives a new horizon to life.
It is a passionate encounter that expands. The document of Aparecida speaks of ten meeting places (246-258).
“To know Jesus is the best gift anyone can receive; having found it was the best that has occurred in our lives, and to make it known with our word and deeds is our joy “(DAp, 29).
Mission from Jesus Christ Christ, light for the peoples (LG, 1).
The present moment is timely to propose a direction, a reference, a meaning for the lives of people that is Jesus Christ. There is a crisis of meaning. Faith in Him has practical implications, that is, radiating faith, goodness, mercy, understanding.
Evangelization is not done only by words, especially by the witness of life. Sr. Carlos is a model of a testimonial mission. Mission by simple presence, gratuity and kindness.
PASSION
“Mission is a passion for Jesus Christ and a passion for his people” (Evangelii Gaudium, 268).
Without this passion the mission is reduced to doing many things, walking from one side to the other, without mysticism and without ardor. Mission is therefore a matter of passion and Christian identity.
What is the purpose of missionary action?
Transmitting the faith is at the heart of the Church’s mission. “The Church exists to evangelize.”
The Church is a follower of the mission of Jesus.
Proclaim and announce the good news of God.
The Church must be at the service of the implantation of the Kingdom of God. It is not an end, it is a medium, an instrument, a sign of salvation.
Save, heal, release …
In the mission, salvation comes first, the juridical, institutional, and doctrinal must be at the service of salvation.
To assume the way of living of Jesus Christ. “Jesus Christ, passed through this world doing good (Acts 10,38). Life and testimony are more important than theory.
In order to mission it is fundamental to experience God’s action in us.
The mission spreads by personal contagion. “Faith grows by attraction” (Benedict XVI).
LESS IS MORE.
“Zero bureaucracy and less administration. More passion, more love and more proclamation of the Gospel “(Pope Francisco, meeting of PMS directors in Rome, June 2017).
Jesus summoned the group of the twelve so that he would first remain with Him and then sent them to preach (cf. Mark 3:14). The missionary’s first task is to remain with Him in order to be conformed by His identity. From this encounter, the mission that has no borders is born.
HOLY SPIRIT IS THE PROTAGONIST
Mission is therefore a matter of faith, of abandonment to God. Therefore, the first work is to pray for the missions. The protagonist is the Holy Spirit. We are Cooperators of God’s mission.
MISSIONARY COOPERATION
If in the mission every initiative is God. What is our part?
God wanted to need us for the mission that is His. It needs our collaboration, our yes, our feet, hands, eyes, ears, our closeness to His children.
It is continually calling collaborators.
I’m a mission …
Pope Francis has spoken of the existential dimension of the mission: “I am a mission of God on this earth, and for this I am in this world” (Evangelli Gaudium, 273). Life becomes a mission. Being a missionary is beyond fulfilling tasks or doing many things. It is in the order of being. It is existential, identity, essence and is not reduced to a few hours of the day. In the Apostolic Exhortation Gaudete et Exsultate the Pope goes so far as to say: “It is not that life has a mission, but life is a mission” (27). The mission has us.
The movement of the exit: the proximity
What reason would we have to get out of ourselves, our community, our land, if we did not have something that drives us to do it?
1. We could get attracted by the charm with the unknown or by the curiosity to visit other places, to meet other people and different cultures: then we would do tourism, or something like, interchange, business, research, etc.
2. We could go out with the desire for conquest, wanting to expand our organization, our world, exploring the world of others according to our vision and our needs: then that would be colonization.
3. We could leave to escape our reality and ourselves, seeking inspiration or personal fulfillment elsewhere: if we take the case of migrants and refugees who flee to survive, we could say that this personal desire.
CHURCH ON EXIT
In the case of the Church, the motivation for her leaving is not in itself. On the contrary, it is a “movement out of itself” (EG, 97). “The disciple-missionary is an offshoot,” says Pope Francis, “whose center is Jesus Christ, who summons and sends”. Here is the permanent discernment and penitential attitude of the “outgoing Church,” for she, on leaving, might be placing herself in the center. “When the Church stands in ‘center’, it becomes functional, becomes more and more self-referential, and weakens its need to be missionary.” (Address by Pope Francisco JMJ, July 28, 2013).
Therefore, the reason for leaving the Church is exclusively Jesus who sends and Jesus who is the reason for sending. In fact, mission is a mandate: we are sent not because we want to, but because we are challenged by someone to take initiative (EG 24). Secondly, we are sent because the Gospel, because it is a “Good News”, has in itself an overwhelming content in its dynamism of “leaving” (EG 20).
The Church, therefore, is called to be “on the way out” as her Lord who “knows how to go forward, knows how to take initiative without fear, to meet, to seek the estranged and to reach the crossroads to invite the excluded” (EG, 24).
This is the time for the Church to rediscover the meaning of her mission, to free herself from the bonds that prevent her from “leaving”, from being an outgoing Church.
It is for this purpose that Pope Francis calls the Church to “leave”, to assume the dynamics of the “exodus”.
The movement of the exit: the proximity
What reason would we have to get out of ourselves, our community, our land, if we did not have something that drives us to do it?
1. We could get attracted by the charm with the unknown or by the curiosity to visit other places, to meet other people and different cultures: then we would do tourism, or something like, interchange, business, research, etc.
2. We could go out with the desire for conquest, wanting to expand our organization, our world, exploring the world of others according to our vision and our needs: then that would be colonization.
3. We could leave to escape our reality and ourselves, seeking inspiration or personal fulfillment elsewhere: if we take the case of migrants and refugees who flee to survive, we could say that this personal desire.
CHURCH ON EXIT
In the case of the Church, the motivation for her leaving is not in itself. On the contrary, it is a “movement out of itself” (EG, 97). “The disciple-missionary is an offshoot,” says Pope Francis, “whose center is Jesus Christ, who summons and sends”. Here is the permanent discernment and penitential attitude of the “outgoing Church,” for she, on leaving, might be placing herself in the center. “When the Church stands in ‘center’, it becomes functional, becomes more and more self-referential, and weakens its need to be missionary.” (Address by Pope Francisco JMJ, July 28, 2013).
Therefore, the reason for leaving the Church is exclusively Jesus who sends and Jesus who is the reason for sending. In fact, mission is a mandate: we are sent not because we want to, but because we are challenged by someone to take initiative (EG 24). Secondly, we are sent because the Gospel, because it is a “Good News”, has in itself an overwhelming content in its dynamism of “leaving” (EG 20).
The Church, therefore, is called to be “on the way out” as her Lord who “knows how to go forward, knows how to take initiative without fear, to meet, to seek the estranged and to reach the crossroads to invite the excluded” (EG, 24).
This is the time for the Church to rediscover the meaning of her mission, to free herself from the bonds that prevent her from “leaving”, from being an outgoing Church.
It is for this purpose that Pope Francis calls the Church to “leave”, to assume the dynamics of the “exodus”.
A JOURNEY OUT AND FOR IN OUTPUT MOVEMENT
The Church is not meant to be only constituted in its institutions, its seats and its structures: it exists to be in motion and to launch into the world.
This is his nature:
his reason for being is to “leave”.
What prevents us from leaving?
Two realities paralyze the Church in her mission:
The temptation to stay in the “center”.
→ the concern with “wanting to be the center”. Temptation of self-referentiality.
“Every Christian and every community must discern what path the Lord asks of them …” (Evangelii Gaudium, 20).
Discernment to leave
The existential horizon of the outgoing Church are the peripheries. The eschatological horizon is the Kingdom of God. Illuminated by the joy of the Gospel, each community must discern which geographical and existential peripheries need special attention and the light of the Gospel.
This exit, however, can not forget
mission ad gentes, across borders.
Exit in what way?
The output of which speaks the document Evangelii Gaudium, is a profound departure, touching the most intimate dimensions of the life of missionary disciples and of the Church. It is not simply going out to impose our will and our world view, wanting to “organize” the world of others.
This is not mission, it is colonization.
The exit requires staying …
To leave, one must remain connected to Him who sends us. To the essential, Jesus and his Gospel. The way out is inside ourselves. On leaving, we also find God in the suffering flesh of Christ.
We are a Church on the way out and we are a Church that returns from the mission to witness to the joy of the Gospel.
The movement of entry: the encounter
The exit process implies an input process:
We entered the other’s house as guests to find. This movement demands kenósis, despojado.
To enter as a guest is to assume the status of pilgrim and stranger who provides us with the priceless gift of the other, his experience.
It requires a spirit of adaptation, a capacity for communication, a discipline in insertion, patience in the journey, generosity in surrender, great sensitivity and passion for the people who welcome us.
SCOPE OF THE MISSION
The Church exists to cooperate with the mission of God (cf. 1Cor 3,9; EG 12).
The. Pastoral – communities (at home).
B. New evangelization – society (away from home).
W. Mission ad gentes – without frontiers (in each other’s house). Greater horizon to understand the other scopes that are interconnected and interconnected.
Mission Ad Gentes
“The transmission of the faith, the heart of the Church’s mission, takes place through the” contagious’ love, in which joy and enthusiasm express the discovery of the meaning and fullness of life. The spread of faith by attraction requires open hearts, expanded by love. One can not place limits on love: strong as death is love (Ct 8, 6). And such expansion generates the encounter, the testimony, the announcement; generates sharing in charity with all those who are far from the faith and are indifferent, sometimes contrary to it “… Human, cultural and religious environments still alien to the Gospel of Jesus and the sacramental presence of the Church constitute the extreme peripheries, the “last ends of the earth”, where, since the Passover of Jesus, his missionary disciples are sent, in the certainty that they always have their Lord with them (Mt 28:20, Acts 1: 8). This is what we call missio ad gentes “(Address by Pope Francis on World Mission Day, 2018).
What is Ad Gentes Mission?
Among those who do not know Jesus Christ in the midst of other peoples and societies. Mission in the other’s house. Missionary cooperation concerns the mission ad gentes, to all peoples.
The participation of each local Church in the universal mission, with other peoples and with other churches.
Besides the territorial and geographical aspect, today is reflected the new cultural environment indifferent to the Gospel.
Mission Ad Gentes – deviations.
The missio ad gentes was and is marked by the colonial mentality, that is, there is a certain complex of superiority in relation to other peoples, cultures, traditions, lifestyles. The other understood as a recipient and not as subject. It is a marked mentality to do mission to and not with others. Some verbs that translate this movement colonizer is to teach, to conquer, to take, to implant, to construct. In this mentality the work done by other people who came before us is ignored. The evangelizing mission does not begin with my arrival.
This way of thinking the mission, does not differ from the colonial projects that despised the local cultures to implant a new mentality. The resistance to missio ad gentes that many pastoral agents have, goes through the understanding of the mission in the colonizing perspective. Even today, the missionaries arrive with the Kit ready, linking the mission to the concept of development, progress and transplantation of the Church into another culture. You talk more than you listen, not valuing the other as an interlocutor. Do we believe or not in the leading role of the Holy Spirit that anticipates us in the mission?
Charles de Foucauld
It is essential not to abandon the missionary criterion of the incarnation in an increasingly plural world. In the colonizing mentality the local languages, traditions and pastoral plans of the local Churches are scorned.
In the fraternity we have the example of the Blessed Charles de Foucauld who knew how to respect and learn the local language and traditions, exercising the ministry of kindness and simple free presence.
Pe. Maurício da Silva Jardim
Brasil
PDF: The mission in the diocesan presbyter. Mauricio da SILVA