Vatican City, 9 May 2014 (VIS) –
Missionary action is the paradigm for all works of the Church, said
the Holy Father this morning, in his address to the participants in
the meeting of the Pontifical Mission Societies, which is being held
in Rome this week.
The Pope mentioned that with his
apostolic exhortation “Evangelii gaudium” he intended to
encourage the faithful to begin a new, evangelical era.
“Evangelisation in this time of great social transformations,
necessitates a missionary, outreach Church, capable of discernment in
order to measure up to different cultures and visions of man. For a
world in transformation, there is a need for a Church that is renewed
and transformed by contemplation and personal contact with Christ, by
the power of the Spirit. … It is He Who gives us the strength to
undertake the missionary path and the joy of proclamation, so that
the light of Christ may illuminate those who still do not know Him or
have denied Him. This takes the courage to go forth to 'reach all the
peripheries in need of the light of the Gospel'. We cannot be held
back by our weaknesses or our sins, nor by the many obstacles to the
witness and proclamation of the Gospel”.
He went on to affirm that the Church,
“missionary by nature, has as her fundamental prerogative the
service of charity to all”; and that “fraternity and solidarity
are natural to her life and her mission in and for the world”.
Evangelisation “must reach out to all, beginning with the least
among us, the poor, those whose backs are bent by the weight and
weariness of life. In so doing the Church continues the mission of
Christ Himself”.
The Church is “the population of the
beatitudes, the house of the poor, of the afflicted, of the excluded
and the persecuted, of those who hunger and thirst for justice”, he
continued, emphasising that the representatives of the Pontifical
Mission Societies are called upon to work so that ecclesial
communities may know how to “welcome the poor with preferential
love, keeping the doors of the Church open so that all may enter and
find refuge”.
The Pontifical Mission Societies are
“the special tool that focuses on and takes special care of the
'missio ad gentes', and the Pope urges the members to “promote
missionary co-responsibility”, as there is a great need for
priests, consecrated persons and lay faithful who, “seized by
Christ's love, are set ablaze with passion for the Kingdom of God and
willing to set out on the path of evangelisation”.
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