Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Vatican City (Fides Service) - “ < As the Father sent me so I send you >. These words of the Gospel we have just heard speak of a profound reality of our faith: we are sent like Christ; our mission is the same mission as that of the Son of God who came to evangelise”. Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe, Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples said this in his homily at Mass for the opening of the academic year 2005-2006and invocation of the Holy Spirit at the Pontifical Urban University on Monday 10 October.
Addressing students and teachers Cardinal Sepe said: “We are sent and our mission is not ours it is the mission of the Son! We carry nothing of ourselves. We carry only Christ always and everywhere. It is necessary to stress this once again at the beginning of this academic year. No one here, teacher or student, priest or religious, prepares to announce his or her own message or point of view or way of understanding the faith; we are called by the Church to Christ’s own mission: to announce the Gospel”.
The Cardinal said that addressing the Bishops meeting for the Synod in the Vatican he called attention to this fact: “We are discussing the theme of the Eucharist which concerns Catholics all over the world, but we must not forget that there are five billion people who have never received this Bread of Life, because they do not know Christ, because no one has announced him to them! In this lies the importance of mission: to carry Christ to the five billion people waiting for missionaries”.
Cardinal Sepe in his homily said “every baptised person is called to be a missionary and mission is a fundamental dimension of Christianity and the Church, it is part of her nature”. Urban University is called to embrace and re-launch this missionary dimension.
“The one sent is a tool in the hands of the Sender - the Cardinal explained -, a tool which is alive and responsible, not mechanical. The missionary lives and acts on behalf of the Sender; the missionary embraces the mission of the Other. So we understand the great responsibility to represent the dignity intentions and will of the Sender. And it is precisely in the Eucharist that communion between Sender and person sent is achieved; in the sacrament of Love and Unity our assimilation with Him is achieved, if we are willing”. The Cardinal continued: “Christ assimilates us to himself, to his mission, he configures us to his love. He makes us His own. His missionary spirit becomes ours, his longing to save souls becomes ours. This type of witness does not step above the sole testimony which must be rendered to the Truth, it is always in total obedience to the teaching of the Church”.
Lastly quoting Pope Paul VI - “the world needs witnesses more than teachers” - Cardinal Sepe urged the university teachers to be the first to bear witness and said he hoped the new academic year would be “a rediscovery of our missionary identity which cannot be renounced with new impulse to live the Church’s truly Catholic and universal dimension”. (S.L.) (Agenzia Fides 13/10/2005 Righe 44, Parole 603)
