Pope Francis reminds us that mission is nothing other than sharing the joy of the most fascinating discovery of our lives: that this God of love of ours is walking alongside us and has a plan of happiness and salvation for all of us. Sometimes, along the way, life’s difficulties make us lose sight of this; they make us lose hope and realize that, as the Pope wrote in his message for World Mission Sunday 2023, “the Lord is greater than our problems, especially when we encounter them while proclaiming the Gospel to the world because this mission is ultimately His and we are simply His humble collaborators.” I would like to share with you three attitudes that could sum up in some way Pope Francis’ message: remember, recognize, and set out.
REMEMBERING
I remember that one of the first evangelization activities I organized in Kacheliba, Kenya, was a series of workshops around the Bible. First, with the 50 or so catechists responsible for coordinating the more than 50 communities in the vast territory of the Kacheliba mission.
There was an immense thirst among our parishioners (many of them not even baptized yet!) to know the Bible. In this regard, Pope Francis says that “without the Lord who introduces us to Sacred Scripture, it is impossible to understand it in depth; but the opposite is also true, that is, without Sacred Scripture, the events of the mission of Jesus and his Church in the world remain indecipherable.” The Pope’s final invitation is to allow ourselves to be accompanied by Jesus on our sometimes difficult journey.
RECOGNIZE
The second attitude that the Pope invites us to have is to recognize. In the experience of the disciples on the road to Emmaus (and in our own experience), recognizing is nothing more than perceiving and understanding the one who guides and directs our life story at every moment.
He accompanies us so that we can recognize Him as He departs and shares His life with each one of us. In the Pope’s words, this is an essential reality of our faith: “Christ who breaks the bread now becomes the broken Bread, shared with the disciples and then consumed by them. He has become invisible, because now He has entered into the hearts of the disciples to make them burn even more, impelling them to resume their journey without delay in order to communicate to everyone the unique experience of meeting the Risen One!”
I remember the moments of doubt and questioning I experienced like any missionary, especially when we expect results in our way: “Is it worth so much commitment and sacrifice to not always get the results we would like? So much time and dedication, so much investment… is it worth it?”
Only in the light of recognizing God’s hand in Jesus’ passion and death does everything appear different and meaningful! Because the apparent difficulty and defeat is the seed of something different and of a new life. And this is the Eucharist!
SETTING OUT
There’s a question that many friends ask me: why are missionaries always so eager to leave for the mission where they’ve been on other continents? Aren’t there needs here too?
In this regard, I identify very much with this thought of Pope Francis’ message for World Mission Sunday: “The image of setting out on a journey reminds us once again of the perennial validity of the missio ad gentes, the mission entrusted by the Risen Lord to the Church: to evangelize every person and every people to the ends of the earth. Today, more than ever, humanity, wounded by so many injustices, divisions and wars, needs the Good News of peace and salvation in Christ. I therefore take this opportunity to reiterate that everyone has the right to receive the Gospel. Christians have the duty to proclaim it without excluding anyone, and not as one who imposes a new obligation, but as one who shares a joy, indicates a stupendous horizon, offers an appetizing banquet” (Evangelii Gaudium, n. 14).
This rush to share the joy of meeting the Lord shows that “the joy of the Gospel fills the heart and the whole life of those who meet Jesus. Those who allow themselves to be saved by Him are freed from sin, sadness, inner emptiness, and isolation. With Jesus Christ, joy is unceasingly reborn” (Evangelii Gaudium, n. 1).
So let’s accept the Pope’s invitation and pro-vocation: “Let us also go forth, enlightened by our encounter with the Risen Lord and animated by His Spirit. Let us go out with burning hearts, eyes open, feet on the road, to make other hearts burn with the Word of God, to open other eyes to Jesus in the Eucharist, and to invite everyone to walk together along the path of peace and salvation that God, in Christ, has given to humanity.”
FILIPE RESENDE | COMBONI MISSIONARY
