MESSAGE OF JOHN PAUL II
FOR WORLD MISSION DAY 1986

Venerable brothers and dearest sons.

1. The solemnity of Pentecost, which, within the context of liturgical celebrations, has the task of reviving in all the faithful the awareness that the Church must proclaim Jesus’ message throughout the world, makes us particularly attentive this year to the anniversary of the 60th anniversary of World Mission Day. Thus, the custom of addressing all of God’s people – precisely on the anniversary of Pentecost – a special message for this “great day of catholicity”, as it was called from its beginnings, appears particularly significant.

Today in which the global vision of the needs of all the Churches and of each of them is perceived more than ever, the commitment to rediscover the fundamental vocation of proclaiming, witnessing and serving the Gospel becomes more urgent; the need to assist the missionaries, be they priests, men and women religious, is felt more urgent; whether they are young people engaged in a life of consecration to God in the world, or lay volunteers who contribute to the growth of young Churches. To all of them, wherever they are, to proclaim the mystery of Christ, the only true Redeemer of humanity, my greetings and my grateful appreciation.

The Catechetical Meaning of World Mission Day

2. What is the sixty-year history of World Mission Day about? At the origin of this story, we find the genuine voice of a small portion of the people of God who, with their adherence to the Pontifical Society for the Propagation of the Faith, were able to interpret the universal mission of the Catholic Church, because this, by its very nature, journeys through the different local cultures, without ever losing its profound identity, that is, being the “universal sacrament of salvation” (cf. “Lumen Gentium”, 48; “Ad Gentes”, 1). And, when the suggestion for the establishment of this Day reached the see of Peter, the promoter Pius XI of happy memory promptly accepted it exclaiming: “This is an idea that comes from heaven”.

The initiative, entrusted to the Pontifical Mission Societies, in particular to the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, has always aimed at making God’s people aware of the need to impose and support missionary vocations and of the duty to cooperate spiritually and materially to the missionary cause of the Church.

In reality we must give thanks to the Lord because so many of his children, so many Christian families, educated in the evangelical language of disinterested love, have responded to the aims of Mission Day with admirable examples of “universal charity”, made evident by the many sacrifices and prayers offered for the missionaries, and often from a direct sharing of their apostolic labours. This leads us to consider that World Mission Day can and must become, in the life of each particular Church, an occasion for implementing programs of permanent catechesis with a broad missionary scope, so as to be able to present to every baptized person, as well as to every community of Christian faith, a proposal for an “evangelized and evangelizing” life.

The problem, always present in the Church, of the expansion of the kingdom of God among non-Christian peoples, has been before me since the inauguration of my apostolic ministry as universal pastor of the Church which coincided – I would say, providentially – on that Sunday of 22 October 1978, with the celebration of World Mission Day. For this reason, as I have already had occasion to recall on many occasions, I have become, year after year, an “itinerant catechist” to make contact with the many people who do not yet know Christ; to share both the spiritual riches of the young Churches and their needs and sufferings, and their efforts to ensure that the Christian faith takes root more and more in their cultures; to encourage all those who are in the outposts of this huge evangelical task so that they are always, with their lives, credible witnesses, especially for young people, of the evangelical message we proclaim.

The Urgency of a New Evangelization

3. We all know how much the experience of a renewed Pentecost, lived thanks to the Second Vatican Council, has had an impact on the history of the last twenty years. In fact, in this extraordinary event, the Church was able to become even more clearly aware of herself and of her mission, engaged in an open dialogue with the entire human family to make her own “the joys and hopes, the sadnesses and anguishes of the men of today, of the poor, above all, and of those who suffer” (Gaudium et Spes, 1).

However, if, on the one hand, the Church has implemented all its possibilities to cement the communion of God with the community of men and the communion of men among themselves, through a constant catechesis derived from the Second Vatican Council, on the other, it has come across the deepest drama of our age, which is “the rupture between the Gospel and culture” as Paul VI wrote in the apostolic exhortation “Evangelii Nuntiandi” (n. 20). Hence, the ever more urgent duty to bring the Church’s global mission back to her fundamental act: “evangelization”, that is, the announcement to the peoples, which makes us discover who Jesus Christ is for us.

Twenty years after the Council, the breath of a new Pentecost has still permeated the Extraordinary Synod of Bishops, promoted by me so that the orientations and directives of the Council can be implemented, with coherence and love, by all members of the people of God.

In celebrating, verifying, promoting the conciliar event, the Church, faced with the problem of identifying the needs of the entire human family, is projected towards the third millennium assuming, with renewed energy, her fundamental mission of “evangelising”, that is, to offer the announcement of faith, hope and charity that she herself draws from her perennial youth, in the light of the living Christ, who is “the way, the truth and the life” for the man of our time and of all times. We are dealing with a continuous evangelization, which finds its novelty in the fact that this serious task must be assumed in a universal perspective since the problems and challenges that arose twenty years ago in the newly founded Churches today have a worldwide resonance.

Co-responsibility for the missions, as a sign of episcopal collegiality, which emerged prominently from the Council, must today be translated more and more into a visible sign of the “concern” that every Bishop must have for all the Churches (cf. “Christus Dominus”, 8) and not only for one’s own particular Church.

The birth of new missionary institutes in the young Churches, emphasizing that the gift of new workers for evangelization also comes from the most needy Churches, must impel all the Churches to give and to give themselves to the universal Church, whether they are in conditions of comfort or poverty of means and apostolic strength.

The increase in the sending of “Fidei donum” diocesan priests, lay people, volunteers on foreign missions, in revealing the typically missionary conscience of ecclesial communities capable of “coming out of themselves” to bring the announcement of Christ elsewhere, must to call associations, movements, ecclesial groups to strengthen the witness of faith in order to be able to rediscover in the mission God’s call to make all the peoples of the earth the one people of God.

In the same perspective, all the realities that make up the ecclesial structure are involved: the family, childhood, young people, the world of school, work, technology, science, culture, communication, the mass average. It can therefore be said that the Church projected towards the third millennium is an essentially missionary Church.

The Precious Service of the Pontifical Mission Societies

4. In this regard, the service performed by the Pontifical Mission Societies, an institution of the universal Church and of each particular Church, appears precious, because they are “privileged instruments of the College of Bishops united with the successor of Peter and with him responsible for the people of God, which is entirely missionary”. They are the Works that the Spirit of the Lord, for over a century and a half, has progressively aroused from the bosom of his people to make visible to the world that particular commitment of charity which is in solidarity with the whole work of evangelization in the world. In fact, they prove to be “a privileged means of communication of the particular Churches among themselves and between each of them and the Pope who, in the name of Christ, presides over the universal communion of charity” (Statutes of the Pontifical Mission Societies, I, nn. 6 and 5).

In the history of missionary cooperation, the Pontifical Mission Societies have built “bridges of solidarity” which they certainly cannot give way, because they are rooted in the faith of Christ’s resurrection, nourished by the Eucharist. In this solid and massive construction, the Catholic laity has managed to write the most beautiful pages of its missionary vitality. An emblematic figure remains that of Paolina Jaricot who inspired the work of the Propagation of the Faith. Next year we will remember her 125 · anniversary from the end of her missionary journey; it will be the same year in which the General Synod of Bishops will be celebrated, with a significant theme for the same anniversary: “Vocation and mission of the laity in the Church and in the world”.

Final Marks

5. Twenty years after the Second Vatican Council, the Church feels called to verify fidelity to the great mandate left to her by that ecumenical assembly, when she affirmed that the duty to increase vocations “belongs to all Christian communities”. In this regard, it is comforting to note a growth in the sense of responsibility within the various communities. Yes, much has been done, but much remains to be done, because the Second Vatican Council expects from everyone, and in particular from Christian families and parish communities, the “maximum contribution” for the increase of vocations ( Optatam Totius, 2).

On this occasion, I wish to express the hope that the Catholic laity – as a whole and in effective communion with the leaders of the people of God – will find in the service of the Pontifical Mission Societies those illuminating values which come from a healthy “school of universal charity”.

May the Blessed Virgin Mary, the faithful missionary of all times, help all of you, venerable brothers and dearest children, to understand this message, to respond to it with a clear conscience, with a clear understanding and with a spirit of communion and solidarity.

In renewing the expression of my gratitude to those in the Church who have been marked by a special vocation for a service of evangelization “ad gentes”, especially to those who find themselves in difficult situations, for the proclamation of the kingdom of God I cordially impart my blessing.

May 18, 1986

JOHN PAUL II

Credit: Dicastery for Communication, to the Holy See