Mission involves everyone, everything and always says Pope

“We cannot be content when we consider that, after two thousand years, there are still peoples who do not know Christ”, or worse still that “there is an ever greater number of people” who despite being baptised “have forgotten” or “abandoned” God and His Church. What’s more it’s the “joint responsibility of all” if this is the case, because the Church – through Christ’s mandate – is “missionary in Her nature” and the Gospel “is not an exclusive possession” of the baptised by a gift to everyone.

These are the key points underscored by Pope Benedict XVI in his message for Word Missions Day, which this year falls on October 23, published Tuesday. Entitled “As the Father has sent me, so I send you” (Jn 20:21), it is a concise two page statement divided into four very clear points: “Go and proclaim, To all, The joint responsibility of all and Global evangelization”.

The Church he writes “is missionary by her very nature… she can never withdraw into herself. She is rooted in particular places in order to go beyond them. The beneficiaries of the Gospel proclamation are all peoples This task has not lost any of its urgency. Indeed..the mission of Christ entrusted to the Church, is still very far from completion”

The Pope also points to the frontier of the new evangelisation, as urgent mission territory, “even in traditionally Christian societies are today reluctant to open to the word of faith. Cultures are changing, nourished also by globalisation, by movements of thought and by the prevailing relativism, a change that leads to a mentality and a life-style that disregard the gospel Message, as if God did not exist, and that exalt the search for well-being, easy money, a career and success as the aim of life, even to the detriment of moral values”.

“The universal mission involves everyone, everything and always” continues the Pope. “Missionary activity in the world cannot be limited to some particular moments or occasions, nor can they be considered as one of many pastoral activities”. “Mission Day”, he concludes “is not an isolated moment in the year, but a precious occasion for pausing to reflect on whether and how we respond to the missionary vocation: an essential response for the life of the Church”.