Rome (Fides News Agency) - On the occasion of the opening of the General Assembly of the Pontifical Mission Societies (PMS) underway in Rome, on the afternoon of Wednesday, May 27, Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle proposed a spiritual reinterpretation of Pope Leo XIV's Message for World Mission Day 2026, drawing inspiration from Jesus' prayer for unity and the experience of the first Christian communities.
The papal Message was published last January 25, the day on which the Church's liturgy commemorates the conversion of the Apostle Paul. World Mission Day (WMD) was established one hundred years ago, in 1926, by Pope Pius XI, and this year it will be celebrated on Sunday, October 18.
"One in Christ and united in mission"
The Cardinal recalled that the theme of Pope Leo XIV's Message, "One in Christ, united in mission," echoes his Augustinian papal motto, "In Illo uno unum" (in the one Christ, we are one).
The Cardinal Pro-Prefect of the Dicastery for Evangelization (Section for First Evangelization and New Particular Churches) presented an exegesis of chapter 17 of the Gospel of Saint John, where the Pope’s reflection finds its roots, particularly in Jesus’ prayer, "I pray not only for them," meaning the disciples, "but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me." "Let me highlight this part of the prayer of Jesus: ‘that all may be one,’ the Cardinal said, "because you have all strands of theology, spirituality, Trinity, ecclesiology, mission all come together there. Brothers and sisters, this is Jesus' prayer before he died. And we believe that seated at the right hand of the Father, interceding for us, he continues to pray, and he continues praying this prayer to the Father: 'that they may all be one.'" The unity for which Jesus prays, the Cardinal continued, is not "just a matter of organization. This is not just a matter of planning and strategy, but of divine communion shared with the disciples and the divine communion into which the disciples are invited or allowed by grace to enter." Unity is a gift: "the unity that Jesus desires, the unity that Jesus prays for, and which is granted to us through faith and in the sacrament of baptism. It is this type of spiritual communion that is being granted to us." "So, when we prepare our catechetical materials for the World Mission Sunday about this call of the Holy Father to be one in Christ and therefore one in mission, I hope we do not forget to go back to this very fundamental aspect of communion, which is often overlooked or downplayed in favor of other forms of so-called unity," he added. For the cardinal, this is the very foundation of mission: "when we talk about baptism as the sacrament of faith and also the sacrament of mission, we should go back to this fundamental element of unity, of communion with the Trinity."
Unity, a condition of missionary credibility
In the second part of the Message of Pope Leo: "Unity in mission," the Cardinal emphasizes: unity is not an exclusive good to be lived in one's own small, elitist groups, but a witness for the world.
"In the prayer of Jesus, it is not the unity of people who say, "I look at you. You look at me. I smile at you. You smile at me. We are united. We are happy together." For Jesus, unity, spiritual, true and authentic spiritual unity in the Christian community, is not inward looking."
The unity of Christians in the prayer of Jesus is like a missionary condition: "a condition for missionary authenticity, credibility. The unity of Christians is a missionary declaration of who our God is. And we say, "Look at us, because in us dwells the God of communion." So the life of Christians should be in itself a living word to the world. And they are in us. Starting from Saint Paul, the Cardinal described what he calls "the mystique of missionary unity": "the diversity of gifts, the diversity of tongues, the diversity of generations. But all part of one another, concerned for each other, and working for the common good. This is missionary unity, and it is missionary communion."
The Cardinal painfully evoked the situations of internal divisions, even violent ones, that undermine the credibility of the Gospel message, particularly in the territories of first evangelization: "What is at stake is not my tribe. What is at stake is not my region. What is at stake is: will people believe that Jesus was sent by the Father?"
The first Christian communities, a paradigm of mission
To illustrate Pope Leo XIV's appeal, the Cardinal explicitly refers to the Acts of the Apostles, where he sees the model for this "mysticism of missionary unity": "In the Acts of the Apostles, Chapter 2, verses 42 to 47, we see how the early Christian communities lived this. They lived and focused on the teachings of the apostles, prayer, the Eucharist, and the sharing of resources. The quality of community life, unity, becomes a missionary proclamation. And the people seeing them, maybe out of curiosity, started joining the community." These first communities, of which Luke writes, had "one heart and one soul" and that they shared everything, can constitute a horizon for contemporary ecclesial life: "The way I read it is the Holy Father is asking our parishes, our dioceses, our religious communities, our schools, to live this, to make it the rule of life, and so that that communion will also be a missionary proclamation of who our God is."
In a world "lacerated, wounded, and divided by competition, by inequality, by discrimination, by injustice, by wars," the Cardinal believes Leo XIV's Message reiterates a specific mission for the Church: "to show the world that unity is possible. Unity is real.
In our unity with the Lord and in our unity among ourselves—thanks to our unity with the Lord—we should be able to say to the world, with our words and, we hope, with our community life: 'Unity is possible. Unity is real. Look at the Body of Christ.'"
A mission rooted in love
The third part of Leo XIV's Message, which the Cardinal summarized by speaking of a "Mission of Love," leads to identifying the "substance" of this unity: "For love is the substance of unity and also the substance of mission. Baptism is being reborn, recreated by the God who is love. So we are made again in the image of the Trinitarian God who is love. When we baptize people, we do not do it in our name: That is the sure way for division. But if someone is baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, this is a person of communion."
Recalling a visit to a refugee camp in Lebanon, the Cardinal testified how this "mission of love" makes Christ desirable: on that occasion, when asked by some refugees why Christians from different countries were present to help the local population, he replied: "Because our teacher, our Lord, Jesus Christ, told us to love everyone. And that is why we are here." At that point, the Cardinal recalled, a young girl replied: "I want to encounter that Jesus. He will be a good friend."
It is this dynamic that the Cardinal proposed again to the more than one hundred national directors of the PMS: helping everyone, from childhood—even through the work of the Society dedicated to missionary childhood—to "say no to all the signs of division present in our existence, and opt for unity in Christ," in order to "bear witness to another kind of communion." He concluded: "Taking into account all the beautiful anniversaries we are celebrating this year, Pope Leo's message, and the context of the world today, I believe we are truly called, as Christians, individually and as a community, to live this gift of communion. Through baptism, we belong to one another. And this belonging is fully experienced in mutual care, in caring for one another for the common good, and becomes a missionary witness for today's world." (ML) (Agenzia Fides, 28/5/2026)
