Mission at the heart of the Christian faith

A summary of Pope Francis’ message for World Mission Day

World Mission Day gathers us around the person of Jesus, who continually sends us forth to proclaim the Gospel of the love of God the Father in the power of the Holy Spirit.

The Church’s mission is based on the transformative power of the Gospel. The Gospel is Good News filled with contagious joy, for it contains and offers new life: the life of the Risen Christ who, by bestowing his life-giving Spirit, becomes for us the Way who invites us to follow him with confidence and courage. In following Jesus as our Way, we experience Truth and receive his Life, which is fullness of communion with God the Father in the power of the Holy Spirit. That life sets us free from every kind of selfishness, and is a source of creativity in love.

Through the mission of the Church, Jesus Christ himself continues to evangelise and act. The Church’s mission thus makes present in history the favourable time of salvation. Through the proclamation of the Gospel, the risen Jesus becomes our contemporary, so that those who welcome him with faith and love can experience the transforming power of his Spirit, who makes humanity and creation fruitful, even as the rain does with the earth. ‘His resurrection is not an event of the past; it contains a vital power which has permeated this world. Where all seems to be dead, signs of the resurrection suddenly spring up. It is an irresistible force’ (Evangelii Gaudium, 276).

The Gospel is a Person, Jesus Christ, who continually offers himself and constantly invites those who receive him with humble and religious faith to share his life by an effective participation in the paschal mystery of his death and resurrection. Through Baptism, the Gospel becomes a source of new life, freed of the dominion of sin, enlightened and transformed by the Holy Spirit. Through Confirmation, it becomes a fortifying anointing that, through the same Spirit, points out new ways and strategies for witness and accompaniment. Through the Eucharist, it becomes food for new life, a ‘medicine of immortality’ (Ignatius of Antioch, Ad Ephesios, 20, 2).

The world vitally needs the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Through the Church, Christ continues his mission as the Good Samaritan, caring for the bleeding wounds of humanity, and as Good Shepherd, constantly seeking out those who wander along winding paths that lead nowhere. Thank God, many significant experiences continue to testify to the transformative power of the Gospel. I think of the gesture of the Dinka student who, at the cost of his own life, protected a student, from the enemy Nuer tribe, who was about to be killed. I think of that Eucharistic celebration in Kitgum, in northern Uganda, where, after brutal massacres by a rebel group, a missionary made the people repeat the words of Jesus on the cross: ‘My God, My God, why have you abandoned me?’ as an expression of the desperate cry of the brothers and sisters of the crucified Lord. For the people, that celebration was an immense source of consolation and courage.

Mission inspires a spirituality of constant exodus, pilgrimage, and exile. We are challenged ‘to go forth from our own comfort zone in order to reach all the peripheries in need of the light of the Gospel’ (Evangelii Gaudium, 20). The Church’s mission impels us to undertake a constant pilgrimage across the various deserts of life, through the different experiences of hunger and thirst for truth and justice. The Church’s mission inspires a sense of constant exile, to make us aware, in our thirst for the infinite, that we are exiles journeying towards our final home, poised between the ‘already’ and ‘not yet’ of the Kingdom of Heaven.

Carrying out our mission with Mary, Mother of Evangelisation

In carrying out our mission, let us draw inspiration from Mary, Mother of Evangelisation. Moved by the Spirit, she welcomed the Word of life in the depths of her humble faith. May the Virgin Mother help us to say our own ‘yes,’ conscious of the urgent need to make the Good News of Jesus resound in our time.

From the Vatican,
4 June 2017, Solemnity of Pentecost