Pope Francis recalls World
Mission Sunday
On the annual occurrence of World Mission Sunday, Pope
Francis invites all people, both young and old, to participate in the mission
of the Church to bring the Gospel to everyone.
Pope Francis recalled World Mission Sunday during his
Angelus address, inviting everyone to participate in the Church's mission.
He said the theme for this year’s occurrence – “Together
with young people, let us bring the Gospel to all” – is the path forward for
the Church.
“We are experiencing this reality, thanks be to God,” the
Pope said, “during these days of the Synod dedicated to them: by listening to
them and involving them we discover many examples of young people who have
found in Jesus the meaning and joy of life.”
Pope Francis said they have often discovered Jesus “thanks
to other young people who have already participated in the communion of his
brothers and sisters, which is the Church.”
The Pope prayed “that future generations may not lack the
proclamation of the faith and the call to collaborate in the mission of the
Church.”
Message for World Mission Sunday
In his message for World Mission Sunday, released in May, Pope
Francis reminds all that “we are not in this world by our own choice,” and
hence there is “an initiative that precedes us and makes us exist.” Each one of
us, he says, is called to reflect on the fact that ‘ I am a mission on this
Earth,” which is why we are here in this world.
In fact, the Pope says, “every man and woman is a mission.”
He says that “to be attracted and to be sent are two movements” of the heart
that “hold out promise for our future and give direction to our lives.”
Gift of self
In his message, the Pope urges young people not to be afraid
of Christ and his Church, because, he says, “it is where “we find the treasure
that fills life with joy.”
Speaking from his own experience, he says that through faith
he found the sure foundation of his dreams and the strength to realize
them.
“For those who stand by Jesus,” the Pope continues, “evil is
an incentive to ever greater love,” because “from the cross of Jesus we learn
the divine logic of self-sacrifice as a proclamation of the Gospel for the life
of the world.
The Pope thus invites young people to ask themselves, “What
would Christ do if he were in my place?”
Transmitting the faith
All Christians by Baptism, the Pope recalls, have received
the mission to bring the Gospel to everyone.
Young people too are part of that great stream of witnesses,
in which elder persons with their wisdom and experience become a witness and
encouragement to the young. This way, he says, the mission of the Church
bridges the generations bringing about unity.
Infectious love
The heart of the Church’s mission, the Pope continues, is
the infectiousness of love, where joy and enthusiasm become the expression of a
newfound meaning and fulfillment in life. The spread of the faith “by
attraction”, he says, calls for hearts that are open and expanded by love. This
generates encounter, witness and proclamation even in “extreme peripheries”
which are indifferent and hostile and to the ends of the earth in ‘missio ad
gentes’.
“No one is so poor as to be unable to give what they have,
but first and foremost what they are,” says Pope Francis.
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