A work that is not our own:
the sources of mission
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| Missionary Community of Villaregia, Maputo, Mozambique |
With his Message to the Pontifical Mission Societies
(Pontificie Opere Missionarie, POM), Pope Francis warns of various pathologies
that risk disfiguring missionary activity, obscuring the action of grace.
By Andrea Tornielli
The Message of Pope Francis to the Pontifical Mission
Societies is a strong text, with concrete indications, that points out the only
real source of the Church’s missionary action. He warns against certain
pathologies, which he calls by name, which risk distorting the very nature of
mission.
Mission, explains Pope Francis, is not the fruit of the
application of “secular notions of activism or technical-professional
competence,” but is born from the “overflowing joy” that “the Lord gives us,”
which is the fruit of the Holy Spirit. This joy, which no one can give on their
own initiative, is a grace. Being missionary means reverberating the great and
unmerited gift that has been received; that is, reflecting the light of
Another, as the moon reflects the light of the sun. “In every human context,”
the Pope writes, “witnesses are those who vouch for what someone else has done.
In this sense, and only in this sense, can we be witnesses of Christ and His
Spirit.” It is that mysterium lunae, the mystery of the moon, so
dear to the Fathers of the Church of the first century, which makes clear that
the Church lives moment by moment by the grace of Christ. Like the moon, the
Church does not shine with her own light; and when she looks too much to
herself or trusts in her own abilities, she ends up being self-referential and
no longer gives light to anyone. The origin of this message is contained in the
Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii gaudium, the text that has charted
the path of the present pontificate. Pope Francis recalls that the proclamation
of the Gospel and the profession of the Christian faith are something entirely
different from any kind of political, cultural, psychological, or religious
proselytism. The Church grows in the world through attraction, and “If one
follows Jesus, happy to be attracted by him, others will take notice.
They may even be astonished.”
The message to the POM makes clear the Pope’s intention to
curb the tendency to consider mission as something elitist, to be directed and
managed from behind a desk, by means of strategies that achieve a certain
“awareness” through discussions, appeals, activism, training programs. It is
clear, too, from the papal test published today that the Bishop considers this
a present risk; and so his words have relevance far beyond the Pontifical
Mission Societies to whom they are addressed. To avoid self-absorption, control
anxiety, and the delegation of missionary activity to “a superior class of
specialists” who see ordinary baptised people as an inert mass to be reanimated
and mobilised, Pope Francis recalls some of the distinctive traits of Christian
mission: gratitude and gratuitousness; humility; closeness to people’s lives,
meeting them where and as they are; and a preference for the little ones and
for the poor.
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