MESSAGE OF THE HOLY FATHER BENEDICT XVI
FOR WORLD MISSION DAY 2012

“Called to make the Word of truth shine forth” (Apostolic letter Porta fidei, 6)

Dear Brothers and Sisters!

The celebration of World Mission Day this year takes on a very special meaning. The recurrence of the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the Second Vatican Council, the opening of the Year of Faith, and the Synod of Bishops on the theme of the new evangelization combine to reaffirm the Church’s will to commit herself with greater courage and ardor to the missio ad gentes for the Gospel to reach to the ends of the earth.

The Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, with the participation of Catholic Bishops from every corner of the earth, was a shining sign of the universality of the Church, welcoming, for the first time, such a large number of Council Fathers from Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Oceania. Missionary bishops and native bishops, Pastors of communities scattered among non-Christian populations, who brought to the Council the image of a Church present on all continents and who interpreted the complex realities of the then so-called “Third World”. Rich in the experience derived from being pastors of young and developing Churches, animated by a passion for spreading the Kingdom of God, they have contributed significantly to reaffirming the need and urgency of evangelization ad gentes and therefore to bring the missionary nature of the Church to the center of ecclesiology.

Missionary Ecclesiology

Today this vision has not failed, on the contrary, it has experienced a fruitful theological and pastoral reflection and, at the same time, it is proposed again with renewed urgency because the number of those who do not yet know Christ has increased: “The men who await Christ are still in immense numbers”, said Blessed John Paul II in the Encyclical Redemptoris Missio on the permanent validity of the missionary mandate, and added: “We cannot remain calm, thinking of the millions of our brothers and sisters, who have also been redeemed by the blood of Christ, who live unaware of God’s love” (n. 86). I too, in proclaiming the Year of Faith, wrote that Christ “today as then, sends us along the roads of the world to proclaim his Gospel to all the peoples of the earth” (Apostolic letter Porta fidei, 7); proclamation which, as the Servant of God Paul VI also expressed himself in the Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii nuntiandi, “is not an optional contribution for the Church: it is the duty incumbent upon her by mandate of the Lord Jesus, so that men and women may believe and be saved. Yes, this message is required. It’s unique. He is irreplaceable” (n. 5). We, therefore, need to resume the same apostolic impetus of the first Christian communities, which, small and defenseless, were capable, with their proclamation and witness, of spreading the Gospel throughout the known world at the time.

It is therefore no wonder that the Second Vatican Council and the subsequent Magisterium of the Church insist in a special way on the missionary mandate that Christ entrusted to his disciples and which must be the commitment of the entire People of God, Bishops, priests, deacons, men and women religious, lay people. The care of proclaiming the Gospel in every part of the earth belongs primarily to the Bishops, who are directly responsible for evangelization in the world, both as members of the episcopal college and as Pastors of the particular Churches. Indeed, they “were consecrated not only for a diocese but for the salvation of the whole world” (John Paul II, Encyclical letter Redemptoris missio, 63), “messengers of faith who bring new disciples to Christ” (ad gentes, 20) and make “visible the missionary spirit and ardor of the People of God, so that the whole diocese becomes missionary” (ibid. , 38).

The Priority of Evangelizing

The mandate to preach the Gospel, therefore, does not end, for a Pastor, in his attention to the portion of the People of God entrusted to his pastoral care, nor in the sending of some priest, layman, or lay fidei donum. It must involve all the activity of the particular Church, all its sectors, in short, all its being and its work. In the Second Vatican Council, he indicated it clearly and the subsequent Magisterium reaffirmed it forcefully. This requires constantly adapting lifestyles, pastoral plans, and diocesan organization to this fundamental dimension of being Church, especially in our ever-changing world. And this also applies to Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, as well as to ecclesial Movements: all the components of the great mosaic of the Church must feel strongly challenged by the Lord’s mandate to preach the Gospel, so that Christ may be proclaimed everywhere. We Pastors, men and women religious and all the faithful in Christ, must follow in the footsteps of the Apostle Paul, who, “Christ’s prisoner for the pagans” (Eph3,1), worked, suffered, and struggled to spread the Gospel among the pagans (see Col 1,24-29), sparing no energy, time or means to make Christ’s Message known.

Even today the mission ad gentes must be the constant horizon and the paradigm of every ecclesial activity, because the very identity of the Church is constituted by faith in the Mystery of God, who revealed himself in Christ to bring us salvation, and by the mission of witness it and announce it to the world, until his return. Like Saint Paul, we must be attentive to those who are far away, those who do not yet know Christ and have not experienced the fatherhood of God, in the awareness that “missionary cooperation today must be extended to new forms, including not only financial aid but also direct participation in evangelization” (John Paul II, Encyclical letter Redemptoris Missio, 82). The celebration of the Year of Faith and the Synod of Bishops on the new evangelization will be propitious occasions for a relaunch of missionary cooperation, especially in this second dimension.

Faith and Announcement

The eagerness to proclaim Christ also impels us to read history in order to perceive in it the problems, aspirations, and hopes of humanity, which Christ must heal, purify and fill with his presence. In fact, his message is always timely, it descends into the very heart of history and is capable of giving an answer to the deepest anxieties of every man. For this reason, the Church, in all its components, must be aware that “the immense horizons of the ecclesial mission, the complexity of the present situation today require renewed ways of being able to communicate the Word of God effectively” (Benedict XVI, Apostolic Exhortation posts in Verbum Domini, 97). This requires, above all, a renewed adherence of personal and community faith to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, “at a time of profound change such as the one humanity is experiencing” (Apostolic letter Porta fidei, 8).

Indeed, one of the obstacles to the momentum of evangelization is the crisis of faith, not only in the Western world, but in a large part of humanity, which also hungers and thirsts for God and must be invited and led to the bread of life and to living water, like the Samaritan woman who goes to Jacob’s well and converses with Christ. As the Evangelist John recounts, the story of this woman is particularly significant (see Jn 4,1-30): she meets Jesus, who asks her for a drink, but then speaks to her of new water, capable of quenching thirst forever. At first the woman does not understand, she remains on a material level, but she is slowly led by the Lord to make a journey of faith which leads her to recognize him as the Messiah. And in this regard Saint Augustine states: “after having welcomed Christ the Lord in her heart, what else could [this woman] have done other than abandon the amphora and run to announce the good news?” (In Ioannis Ev.,15, 30). The encounter with Christ as a living Person who satisfies the thirst of the heart can only lead to the desire to share the joy of this presence with others and to make it known so that everyone can experience it. It is necessary to renew the enthusiasm to communicate the faith to promote a new evangelization of communities and countries of ancient Christian tradition, which are losing their reference to God, so as to rediscover the joy of believing. The concern to evangelize must never remain on the margins of ecclesial activity and the personal life of the Christian, but strongly characterize it, in the awareness of being recipients and, at the same time, missionaries of the Gospel. The central point of the announcement always remains the same: the Kerigma of Christ who died and rose again for the salvation of the world, the Kerigma of God’s absolute and total love for every man and every woman, culminating in the sending of the eternal and only-begotten Son, the Lord Jesus, who did not disdain to assume poverty of our human nature, loving it and redeeming it, through the offering of himself on the cross, from sin and death.

Faith in God, in this plan of love realized in Christ, is above all a gift and a mystery to be welcomed into one’s heart and into one’s life and for which to always thank the Lord. But faith is a gift that is given to us to be shared; it is a talent received to bear fruit; it is a light that must not remain hidden, but illuminate the whole house. It is the most important gift that has been given to us in our existence and that we cannot keep for ourselves.

The Announcement becomes Charity

“Woe to me if I do not proclaim the Gospel!” said the Apostle Paul (1 Cor9,16). These words resonate strongly for every Christian and for every Christian community on all continents. Even for the Churches in mission territories, mostly young Churches, often recently founded, missionary spirit has become a natural dimension, even if they themselves still need missionaries. Many priests, men and women religious, from all over the world, numerous lay people, and even entire families leave their countries, their local communities and go to other Churches to bear witness and proclaim the Name of Christ, in which humanity finds salvation. It is an expression of deep communion, sharing, and charity between the Churches so that every man can listen or listen again to the announcement that heals and approach the sacraments, the source of true life.
Together with this lofty sign of faith which is transformed into charity, I recall and thank the Pontifical Mission Societies, an instrument for cooperation in the universal mission of the Church in the world. Through their action, the proclamation of the Gospel also becomes intervention in aid of neighbour, justice for the poorest, the possibility of education in the most remote villages, medical assistance in remote places, emancipation from poverty, rehabilitation of the marginalized, support for the development of peoples, overcoming ethnic divisions, respect for life in every phase.

Dear brothers and sisters, I invoke upon the work of evangelization ad gentes , and in particular upon its workers, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, so that God’s grace may make it walk more resolutely in the history of the world. With Blessed John Henry Newman I would like to pray: “Accompany, O Lord, your missionaries to the lands to be evangelized, put the right words on their lips, and make their efforts fruitful”. May the Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church and Star of evangelization, accompany all the missionaries of the Gospel.

From the Vatican, 6 January 2012, Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord

BENEDICT XVI

 

Credit: Dicastery for Communication, to the Holy See