Vatican City, 3 December 2015 (VIS) –
Pope Francis received in audience this morning the participants in
the plenary assembly of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of
Peoples, which considered the “missio ad gentes” in the light of
the Conciliar decree “Ad gentes” and St. John Paul II's
encyclical “Redemptoris missio”. In his address to the 160
attendees in the Clementine Hall, the Holy Father referred to his
recent apostolic trip to Africa, highlighting the spiritual and
pastoral dynamism of the continent's many young Churches, as well as
the grave difficulties experienced by a large part of the population.
“I saw that where there is the need,
the Church is almost always present to heal the wounds of those most
in need, in whom She recognises the afflicted and crucified body of
the Lord Jesus. How many works of charity, of human promotion! How
many anonymous good Samaritans work every day in the missions!
He emphasised that the Church, by
nature evangelising, always starts by auto-evangelisation. “As the
Lord Jesus' disciple, she listens to His Word and from this she draws
the reasons for that hope that never disappoints, as it is based on
the grace of the Holy Spirit. Only in this way is she able to
conserve her freshness and apostolic zeal”. As affirmed in the
Conciliar decree “Ad gentes”, “it is from the mission of the
Son and the mission of the Holy Spirit that she draws her origin, in
accordance with the decree of God the Father”. The Pope reiterated,
“It is the Church that is at the service of the mission. … It is
not the Church who makes the mission, but the mission that makes the
Church. Therefore, the mission is not a tool, but rather a starting
point and aim”.
In recent months, the Congregation has
carried out a survey on the vitality of the young Churches to
understand how to make the work of the missio ad gentes more
effective, also in view of the ambiguity to which the experience of
faith is sometimes exposed today. “The secularised world, indeed,
even when it is welcoming towards the Gospel values of love, justice,
peace and sobriety, does not show similar openness to the figure of
Jesus; it considers Him neither the Messiah nor the Son of God. At
most, it considers Him an enlightened man. It therefore separates the
message from the Messenger, the gift from the Giver. In this
situation of separation, the missio ad gentes serves as a motor and
horizon for faith. … The mission, in fact, is a force capable of
transforming the Church from within, before transforming the life of
peoples and cultures. Each parish thus makes the style of the missio
ad gentes its own. In this way, the Holy Spirit will transform those
whose faith is based on habit alone into disciples, disaffected
disciples into missionaries, bringing them out of their fears and
isolation and projecting them in every direction, to the very limits
of the world. May the kerygmatic approach to faith, so familiar in
the young Churches, have space also for those of a more ancient
tradition”.
The Pope recalled that neither Paul nor
Barnabas had a missionary dicastery to support them, yet they
announced the Word, bringing to life various communities and shedding
their blood for the Gospel. “Over time complexities grew and the
need arose for a special relationship between the more recently
founded Churches and the universal Church. For this reason, four
centuries ago, Pope Gregory XV instituted the Congregation 'De
Propaganda Fide', which in 1967 changed its name to the 'Congregation
for the Evangelisation of Peoples'. It is clear that in this phase of
history, 'mere administration can no longer be enough. Throughout the
world, let us be permanently in a state of mission'. … Going forth
is innate in our Baptism, and its boundaries are those of the world.
Therefore, continue to work so that the spirit of the missio ad
gentes may inspire the journey of the Church, so that she may always
know how to listen to the cry of the poor and the distant, to meet
all and to announce the joy of the Gospel”.
Francis thanked the Congregation for
its work in missionary inspiration and cooperation, remarking that
“all Churches, if constricted to their own horizons, run the risk
of atrophy. The Church lives and grows when outbound, taking the
initiative” and going out to the people. “In many paths of the
missio ad gentes, the dawn of a new day is already visible, as is
shown by the fact that the young Churches know how to give, not only
to receive. The first fruits are their willingness to grant their
priests to sister Churches of the same nation, the same continent, or
to serve Churches in need in other regions of the world. Cooperation
is not only along the north-south axis. There is also a movement in
the other direction, of giving back the good received from the first
missionaries. These too are signs of maturity”.
The Pope concluded by asking all
present to pray and work so that the Church may always follow the
model of the Acts of the Apostles. “Let us be inspired by the
strength of the Gospel and the Holy Spirit; let us come out of our
narrow enclosures and emigrate from the territories where we are are
at times tempted to close ourselves away”.
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