MESSAGE OF JOHN PAUL II
FOR WORLD MISSION DAY, 1982

Venerable brothers and dearest sons and daughters of the Church!

As the next World Mission Day approaches, as I do every year, I would like to address my personal message to all of you, which will contribute to a common reflection on the missionary dimension, which belongs to the very essence of the Church, Mystical Body of Christ and People of God, and also on the consequent commitment, which involves us all, so that the Gospel of Jesus is preached and accepted throughout the world.

This year my message takes its cue from a particularly significant event: the 25th anniversary of the Encyclical “Fidei Donum” of my venerable predecessor Pius XII. With it began an important turning point in the field of missionary pastoral care, which then received from the Second Vatican Council those guidelines along which the Church, aware of her own intrinsic nature and mission and always aimed at studying the signs of the times, continues its journey today with the intention of serving man and leading him to salvation by disclosing to him “the unsearchable riches of Christ” (Eph 3:8).

This important document, while focusing its specific attention on Africa, contained clear directives, valid for the missionary activity of the Church in all the continents of the earth, and its original contribution has converged, as is known, especially in the Conciliar Decree ” Ad Gentes ” and, even more recently, in the “Notae directivae” “Postquam Apostoli” of the Sacred Congregation for the Clergy.

1. The Bishops, Responsible for the Evangelization of the World

The encyclical “Fidei Donum” first of all solemnly recalled the principle of the co-responsibility of the bishops, by virtue of their belonging to the Episcopal College, in the evangelization of the world.

In fact, to them, as successors of the Apostles, Christ has entrusted and entrusts, before anyone else, the common mandate of proclaiming and spreading the Good News to the ends of the earth. Therefore, although they are pastors of individual parts of the flock, they are and must feel solidly responsible, in union with the Vicar of Christ, for the missionary journey and duty of the whole Church; they will therefore be keenly solicitous towards “those parts of the world where the word of God has not yet been proclaimed or where, due to the small number of priests, the faithful are in danger of withdrawing from the practice of the Christian life, indeed, of losing the same faith” ( Christus Dominus , 6).

Today I would like to underline once again this basic principle deeply studied and developed by the Council (cf. Lumen Gentium, 23-24; Ad Gentes , 38), both to highlight its relevance and to exhort all my venerable brothers in the Episcopate to become ever more aware of this supreme responsibility of theirs, recalling that they “were consecrated not only for a diocese, but for the salvation of the whole world” ( Ad Gentes , 38).

This principle will become even clearer bearing in mind the mutual and close relations between the particular Churches and the universal Church. Indeed, if in every particular Church, which has its hinge and foundation in its bishop, “the one, holy, catholic, apostolic Church of Christ is present and active” (Christus Dominus, 11), it follows that it, in its concrete environment, it must promote all the activity that is common to the universal Church.

Every diocese is therefore called to become ever more aware of this universal dimension, that is, to discover or rediscover its own missionary nature, expanding “the spaces of charity to the ends of the earth, showing for those who are far away the same concern it has for those who are its members ( Ad Gentes , 37).

Therefore every bishop, head and guide of the local Church, will have to commit his energies in this sense, that is, he will have to do as much as possible to give a vigorous missionary impulse to his diocese: it is up to him above all to create in the faithful a Catholic mentality in the full sense of the word, open to the needs of the universal Church, sensitizing the people of God to the essential duty of cooperation in its various forms; promote appropriate initiatives of support and spiritual and material aid to the missions, strengthening existing structures or creating new ones; to favor priestly and religious vocations in a very special way, while at the same time helping priests to acquire awareness of the typically apostolic dimension of the priestly ministry (cf.Ad Gentes , 38).

2. The Lack of Apostles is the Primary Urgency of the Mission

A concrete form of cooperation, which the bishops will be able to resort to in order to realize their co-responsibility in the work of evangelization, is the sending of diocesan priests on mission, since one of the most urgent needs of many Churches today is precisely the worrying shortage of apostles and servants of the Gospel.

This is the great novelty to which «Fidei Donum» has linked its name. A novelty that has overcome the territorial dimension of priestly service to allocate it to the whole Church, as the Council underlines: “The spiritual gift that priests received in Ordination does not prepare them for a limited and restricted mission, but for a very vast and universal mission of salvation “to the ends of the earth” ( Acts 1:8), given that any priestly ministry shares in the same universal breadth of the mission entrusted by Christ to the Apostles” ( Presbyterorum Ordinis , 10).

Since one of the most serious obstacles to spreading Christ’s message is precisely the lack of “workers in the Lord’s vineyard”, I would like to take this opportunity to exhort all bishops, in their work of aiding and promoting the works of evangelization, to generously send own priests in those regions that have urgent need of them, even if their diocese does not have overabundance of clergy. «It is not a question – Pius XII recalled quoting St. Paul – of putting you in poverty to relieve others, but of giving equality (2 Cor 8, 13). Dioceses suffering from a shortage of clergy should not refuse to listen to the pleas coming from the missions asking for help. May the widow’s mite be the example to follow according to the word of the Lord: if a poor diocese helps another poor one, she will not be able to suffer a greater impoverishment than her since one can never win the Lord in generosity”.

But, in addition to priests, “Fidei Donum” also directly involved the laity, whose service alongside priests and religious on mission is today more precious and indispensable than ever (cf. Ad Gentes, 41). This created the conditions for experiencing that typical phenomenon of our time, which I warmly wish to recommend, which is international Christian voluntary service.

3. Development of the Missionary Awareness of the local Churches

The introduction of these forms of cooperation, as well as the strong reference to the principle of the co-responsibility of the Episcopal College in the evangelization of the world, had the indisputable merit of launching the missionary renewal of the Church, the presuppositions of which already appear in the farsighted affirmation of Pius XII according to whom «the life of the Church in its visible aspect», instead of preferentially deploying its strength – as in the past – «in the countries of old Europe where it spread… towards what could be called the periphery of the world », now takes the form of an «exchange of life and energy between all the members of the Mystical Body» (Pius XII, Fidei Donum : AAS 49 [1957] 235).

First of all, the basic idea was acquired more and more deeply, then amply developed and affirmed by the Council, of the indispensable duty of every local Church to engage directly, according to one’s possibilities, in the work of evangelization; and therefore there was an undeniable deepening of the missionary awareness of the particular Churches, these having been urged to overcome the mentality and the practice of “delegation”, which had largely characterized their attitude towards missionary duty.

Thus there has been a decisive drive for these Churches to become ever more primary subjects of mission (cf. Ad Gentes, 20), personally responsible for the mission (cf. Ad Gentes , 36-37), as I was able to see personally in the my travels in Africa, Latin America, Asia.

Furthermore, having accentuated this role of “missionary subject” has prompted the particular Churches to place themselves in relation to the sister Churches scattered throughout the world in that “communion”-“cooperation” which is “so necessary to carry out the work of evangelization” (cf. Ad Gentes, 38), and which is one of the most current realities of mission, in an interchange of values and experiences, which allows individual Churches to benefit from the gifts which the Spirit of the Lord is disseminating everywhere (see Ad Gentes, 20).

No closure, therefore, on the part of the particular Churches, no isolationism or selfish withdrawal into the exclusive and limited sphere of their own problems; otherwise, the vital impetus would lose its vigor inevitably leading to a pernicious impoverishment of all spiritual life.

4. Missionary Cooperation Mutual Exchange of Energies and Experiences

Here then is the emergence of the new concept of cooperation, no longer understood as “one-way”, as help provided to the younger Churches by the Churches of ancient foundation, but as a reciprocal and fruitful exchange of energies and goods, in the context of a fraternal communion of sister Churches, in an overcoming of the dualism between rich Churches and poor Churches, as if there were two distinct categories: Churches which give and Churches which receive only. In reality there is true reciprocity in that the poverty of a Church which receives help makes the Church which deprives itself in giving richer.

The mission thus becomes not only a generous help from “rich” Churches to “poor” Churches, but a grace for every Church, a condition for renewal, a fundamental law of life (cf. Ad Gentes , 37).

However, it must be emphasized that the appeal addressed to the particular Churches to send priests and lay people did not mean an overcoming of the traditional forms and forces of missionary cooperation, which continue to carry the greatest weight of evangelization. It was a novelty, which did not replace or alternatively, but in complementarity, as a new richness, aroused by the Spirit, flanked by traditional forces.

After twenty-five years of these experiences, which have reached a notable consistency and solidity, however we are beginning to perceive some signs of tiredness, due on the one hand to the decline in vocations and on the other to the urgency of facing the crisis in which they are struggling many Christian communities of ancient tradition. Faced with the phenomenon of de-Christianization, the temptation may arise to withdraw into oneself, to withdraw into one’s own problems, to exhaust the missionary thrust within oneself.

Therefore, a vigorous missionary revival is needed, rooted in the deepest inspiration which comes to the Church directly from the divine Master (cf. Evangelii Nuntiandi , 50), dictated by a confident hope and supported by the common commitment of the particular Churches and of all Christians.

5. Priority role of the Pontifical Mission Societies

In planning this vigorous missionary revival, an indispensable factor for the very life and growth of the local Churches and of the whole Church, I would finally like to recommend recourse to that irreplaceable instrument of missionary cooperation so strongly recommended by my predecessors, constituted by the Pontifical Mission Societies which always and everywhere, as ” Ad Gentes ” (n. 38) declares, “must be given first place” and which it is especially appropriate to strengthen and develop in all dioceses.

World Mission Day reminds us, in particular, of the Pontifical Society for the Propagation of the Faith, which deserves the merit of having proposed to His Holiness Pope Pius XI, in 1926, the happy initiative of proclaiming the annual Day in favor of missionary activity of the Church, and has the task of promoting and organizing, with the help of the other Pontifical Societies and under the direction of their respective bishops, this same Day.

Due impetus should also be given to the Missionary Union of the Clergy, which has the primary task of animating and sensitizing to the urgency of the missionary problem – through the capillary network of priests, men and women religious – all segments of God’s people.

The degree of “missionary spirit” of the entire local Church will largely depend on the correct development of this association and, in a special way, the missionary sensitivity of the priests, to whom the Union is primarily directed, so that these will naturally be driven – in a ever more lively and profound awareness of the apostolicity intrinsic to their priesthood – to cross not only spiritually, but also materially, the boundaries of their own diocese, to offer their service even in the most distant Churches on earth, where the strongest invocations of help.

In conclusion of this message, I wish to express all my gratitude to all those – bishops, priests, men and women religious and lay people – often at the price of unimaginable hardships and sacrifices who spend their best energies, their lives, “on the front line”, but also “in the rear”, to spread the announcement of salvation to the ends of the world, so that the name of Christ the Redeemer is known and glorified by all.

To all of you, venerable brothers and dearest sons and daughters of the Church, I cordially impart my paternal Apostolic Blessing, a pledge of abundant heavenly favors and a sign of my constant benevolence.

From the Vatican, May 30, the solemnity of Pentecost, in the year 1982, the fourth of my Pontificate.

JOHN PAUL II

 

 

Credit: Dicastery for Communication, to the Holy See