Dear Friends,
It is wonderful to be back with you, refreshed and rejuvenated after my recent home leave to Germany and Poland, and equally wonderful to arrive back just in time to celebrate World Mission Day.
Pope Francis reminds us in his Message for World Mission Day that this year is the 90th anniversary of this special day in the Church’s calendar which aims to celebrate the Church’s missionary nature, reinforce the call to Mission for all the baptised, and to raise awareness of and funds for missionary activity around the world.
Much has changed in missionary thought and practice over those 90 years, but the essential character of Mission remains the same, summed up in Jesus’ great commission to his followers: “Go out to all the world and tell the Good News”. In other words, go out and share the love of Christ.
In his message, Pope Francis invites us to “consider the mission ad gentes as a great, immense work of mercy, both spiritual and material”. He talks of missionaries sharing Christ’s merciful love, but not proselytising.
“Faith is God’s gift and not the result of proselytising; rather it grows thanks to the faith and charity of evangelisers who witness to Christ,” he says. “As they travel through the streets of the world, the disciples of Jesus need to have a love without limits, the same measure of love that our Lord has for all people.”
So Pope Francis is telling us that Mission is not complicated. It requires of us only to witness the love of Christ – love without limits. And yet, what a challenge that is for us! Love without limits? Am I up for that? Am I capable of it?
The answer is that I am only capable of it when I remain close to God who is the source of all love. Left to my own limited devices, love might soon run dry. But if I stay close to the source of all love, then love without limits becomes possible. And Pope Francis goes on to say that this merciful love, which underlies all Mission, can be applied to the circumstances of all our lives.
“It is through this love that the Church discovers its mandate, lives it and makes it known to all peoples through a respectful dialogue with every culture and religious belief,” he says.
As Divine Word Missionaries, we are especially committed to engaging with love in respectful dialogue with people of every culture and religious belief, but we are aware too, that every baptised person is called to Mission, in whatever their daily situation.
“On this World Mission Sunday, all of us are invited to ‘go out’ as missionary disciples, each generously offering their talents, creativity, wisdom and experience, in order to bring the message of God’s tenderness and compassion to the entire human family,” says Pope Francis.
May we all come a bit closer to ‘loving without limits’, wherever we find ourselves in life.
Yours in the Word,
Fr Henry Adler SVD
Provincial