Agenzia Fides

Vatican City (Fides Service) - Missionaries often think of themselves as evangelisers. The missionary zeal focuses them on the need to share the Faith with others in the hope of bringing all men and women to Christ. Yet missionaries too are aware that the authentic way of proclaiming the Gospel is to live it in their lives and so become living witnesses of the Risen Lord. More than the need to share the Faith therefore, missionary should be moved by the impulse to deepen their relationship with the Lord.
The People of God in mission lands must be conscious of this need to know more the Lord and to have a closer relationship with Him. There is in every heart the seed of faith which, if its dynamics are simply followed, leads to an ever deepening intimacy with the Lord. This, in essence, is ongoing formation, a process where missionaries are sent but called back to sped a moment of silence with the Lord, as the disciples did during their time.
The People of God in mission lands are called to be contemplatives too, for the Good News which they have received from the missionaries does not only give them a way of life to live, but also a ‘face to contemplate” as Pope John Paul II puts it in Novo Millennio Ineunte. It is in this contemplation that they are truly transfigured and become witnesses to all the nations. Ricardo J. Cardinal Vidal. Archbishop of Cebu (Agenzia Fides 29/8/2006; righe 17, parole 262)