MISSIONARY INTENTION - Holy Father's Missionary Intention for October 2009: “That the entire People of God, to whom Christ entrusted the mandate to go and preach the Gospel to every creature, may eagerly assume their own missionary responsibility and consider it the highest service they can offer humanity.” Commentary.

Wednesday, 30 September 2009

Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) – Jesus Christ was sent by the Father for the salvation of mankind. “Because God did not send His Son into the world to judge the world, but so that the world might be saved through Him” (Jn 3:17). Christ, before He ascended into Heaven, entrusted the Church with the task of continuing His mission in the world. “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all peoples baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,” (Mt. 28:19). In the years following the II Vatican Council, there was a diffusion of several theological mindsets that misinterpreted the Conciliar texts and questioned the need for the ad gentes mission. They considered preaching the faith as an attack on others' freedom. The Council had affirmed: “Nor does Divine Providence deny the helps necessary for salvation to those who, without blame on their part, have not yet arrived at an explicit knowledge of God and with His grace strive to live a good life” (LG, 16). And so, why preach the Gospel if non-believers can attain salvation?
In his Message for World Mission Sunday 2009, which will be celebrated October 18, the Holy Father Benedict XVI recalls that the Church does not preach the Gospel out of desire for power or dominion over people: “I strongly reiterate what was so frequently affirmed by my venerable Predecessors: the Church works not to extend her power or assert her dominion, but to lead all people to Christ, the salvation of the world” (Message for World Mission Day 2009, Introduction). Knowing Christ is knowing freedom. All human beings have a right to receive the Good News of God's Love and to reach human fulfillment, becoming children of God.
The Church has a vocation to service, following the example of her Master, who “did not come to be serve, but to serve.” The Holy Father says so: “We seek only to place ourselves at the service of all humanity, especially the suffering and the excluded” (Message for World Mission Day 2009, Introduction).
Mankind today is experiencing an unimaginable progress in the area of science and technology, and yet it seems to have forgotten the most profound values of man. John Paul II affirmed in his encyclical, “Redemptoris Missio,” that modern man has lost the sense of ultimate realities and of existence itself (cf. RM, 2). Lighting the path of man by presenting Christ, the Light of all Peoples, is an essential part of the Church's mission. “The whole of humanity has the radical vocation to return to its source, to return to God, since in Him alone can it find fulfilment through the restoration of all things in Christ” (Message for World Mission Day 2009, 1). The Church has received this mission and cannot deny it. Preaching Christ is not up to others, it is the center of the life and mission of the Church. The universal mission should be constant and fundamental to the life of the Church. Preaching the Gospel, the Holy Father says, should be for us – as it was for the Apostle Paul – an urgent and primary commitment.
The mission is so essential to the Church, that her members should be willing to bear witness to Christ even with the sacrifice of their own life. The shedding of blood continues to be the most eloquent testimony to God's love among mankind. The Church should walk towards the same destiny as her Master. “Remember the word I spoke to you, 'No slave is greater than his master.' If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you” (Jn 15:20). The Church, therefore, continues her path and faces the same destiny as that of Christ, as she does not act according to human logic nor depend on her own strength but follows the way of the Cross, so as to become in filial obedience to the Father, witness and companion on this journey of mankind.
In this month of October, Month of the Missions, we are called to intensify our prayer to the Holy Spirit, the Soul of the Mission, that the passion for preaching the Gospel to all mankind may increase in the entire Church, among all the People of God. (Agenzia Fides 30/9/2009)


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