Mission Column October 20, 2021
WE CANNOT KEEP THE LORD
TO OURSELVES
Once we experience the
power of God’s love, and recognize His fatherly presence in our personal and
community life, we cannot help but proclaim and share what we have seen and
heard…. “Go therefore to the highways and byways, and invite everyone you find”
(Mt 22:9). No one is excluded, no one need feel distant or removed from this
compassionate love…. As Christians, we cannot keep the Lord to ourselves: the
Church’s evangelizing mission finds outward fulfillment in the transformation
of our world and in the care of creation…. The theme of this year’s World
Mission (Sun)day – “We cannot but speak about what we have seen and heard”
(Acts 4:20), is a summons to each of us to “own” and to bring to others what we
bear in our hearts.
THE
EXPERIENCE OF THE
APOSTLES
The first Christians
began the life of faith amid hostility and hardship…those experiences impelled
them to turn problems, conflicts and difficulties into opportunities for
mission… Nothing and no one was to be excluded from the message of liberation.
Like the Apostles and the first Christians, we too can say with complete
conviction: “We cannot but speak about what we have seen and heard” (Acts
4:20). Everything we have received from the Lord is meant to be put to good use
and freely shared with others….The first Christians, far from yielding to the
temptation to become an elite group, were inspired by the Lord and His offer of
new life to go out among the nations and to bear witness to what they had seen
and heard: the good news that the Kingdom of God is at hand….
THE PANDEMIC NECESSITATES
MISSION OF COMPASSION
The pandemic has brought
to the fore and amplified the pain, the solitude, the poverty, and the
injustices experienced by so many people. In these days of pandemic…. there is
urgent need for the mission of compassion, which can make that necessary
(social) distancing an opportunity for encounter, care and promotion. “What we
have seen and heard” (Acts 4:20), the mercy we have experienced, can thus
become a point of reference and a source of credibility enabling us to recover
a shared passion for building “a community of belonging and solidarity worthy
of our time, our energy and our resources” (Fratelli Tutti, 36).
AN INVITATION TO EACH OF
US
On World Mission
(Sun)day, which we celebrate on the penultimate Sunday of October, we recall
with gratitude all those men and women who by their testimony of life help us
to renew our baptismal commitment to be generous and joyful apostles of the
Gospel. Let us remember especially all those who resolutely set out, leaving
home and family behind, to bring the Gospel to all those places and people
athirst for its saving message. To be on mission is to be willing to think as
Christ does, to believe with Him that those around us are also my brothers and
sisters. May His compassionate love touch our hearts and make us all true
missionary disciples.
Please remember “The Society for the Propagation of the Faith” when writing or changing your Will.
