From the desk of Vocation Team – Claret Nivas -
2017
Led by
the Spirit for Mission
Dear
Brothers and Sisters,
|
In the last few years, we have considered two aspects of the
Christian vocation: the summons to “go out from ourselves” to hear the Lord’s
voice, and the importance of the ecclesial community as the privileged place
where God’s call is born, nourished and expressed.
Now, on this 54th World Day of Prayer for Vocations, I would like
to reflect on the
missionary dimension of our Christian calling. Those who drawn by
God’s voice and determined to follow Jesus soon discover within themselves an
irrepressible desire to bring the Good News to their brothers and sisters
through proclamation and the service of charity. All Christians are called to
be missionaries of the Gospel! As disciples, we do not receive the gift of
God’s love for our personal consolation, nor are we called to promote
ourselves, or a business concern. We are simply men and women touched and
transformed by the joy of God’s love, who cannot keep this experience just to
ourselves. For “the Gospel joy which enlivens the community of disciples is a
missionary joy (Evangelii Gaudium, 21).
Commitment to mission is not something added on to the Christian
life as a kind of decoration, but is instead an essential element of faith
itself. A relationship with the Lord entails being sent out into the world as
prophets of his word and witnesses of his love.
Even if at times we are conscious of our weaknesses and tempted to
discouragement, we need to turn with God with confidence. We must overcome a
sense of our own inadequacy and not yield to pessimism, which merely turns us
into passive spectators of a dreary and monotonous life. There is no room for
fear! God himself comes to cleanse our “unclean lips” and equip us for the
mission: “Your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out. Then I heard the
voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send and who will go for us?’ And I
said, ‘Here am I, send me’” (Is 6:6-8).
In the depths of their heart, all missionary disciples hear this
divine voice bidding them to “go about”, as Jesus did, “doing good and healing
all” (cf. Acts 10:38). I have mentioned that, by virtue of
baptism, every Christian is a “Christopher”, a bearer of Christ, to his
brothers and sisters (cf. Catechesis, 30
January 2016). This is particularly the case with those called to a life of
special consecration and with priests, who have generously responded, “Here I
am, Lord, send me!” With renewed missionary enthusiasm, priests are called to
go forth from the sacred precincts of the temple and to let God’s tender love
overflow for the sake of humanity (cf. Homily at
the Chrism Mass, 24 March 2016). The Church needs such priests: serenely
confident because they have discovered the true treasure, anxious to go out and
joyfully to make it known to all (cf. Mt 13:44).
Certainly many questions arise when we speak of the Christian
mission. What does it mean to be a missionary of the Gospel? Who gives us the
strength and courage to preach? What is the evangelical basis and inspiration
of mission? We can respond to these questions by meditating on three scenes
from the Gospels: the inauguration of Jesus’ mission in the synagogue at
Nazareth (cf. Lk4:16-30);
the journey that, after his resurrection, he makes in the company of the
disciples of Emmaus (cf. Lk 24:13-35) and, finally, the parable of the
sower and the seed (cf. Mt 4:26-27).
Jesus is anointed by the Spirit and sent. To be
a missionary disciple means to share actively in the mission of Christ. Jesus
himself described that mission in the synagogue of Nazareth in these words:
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed to bring good news
to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of
sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim the year of
the Lord’s favour” (Lk 4:18-19).
This is also our mission: to be anointed by the Spirit, and to go out to our brothers and sisters in order to proclaim the word and to be for
them a means of salvation.
Jesus is at our side every step of the way. The
questions lurking in human hearts and the real challenges of life can make us
feel bewildered, inadequate and hopeless. The Christian mission might appear to
be mere utopian illusion or at least something beyond our reach. Yet if we
contemplate the risen Jesus walking alongside the disciples of Emmaus (cf. Lk 24:13-15), we can be filled with new
confidence. In that Gospel scene, we have a true “liturgy of the street”,
preceding that of the word and the breaking of the bread. We see that, at every
step of the way, Jesus is at our side! The two disciples, overwhelmed by the
scandal of the cross, return home on the path of defeat. Their hearts are
broken, their hopes dashed and their dreams shattered. The joy of the Gospel
has yielded to sadness. What does Jesus do? He does not judge them, but walks
with them. Instead of raising a wall, he opens a breach. Gradually he
transforms their discouragement. He makes their hearts burn within them, and he
opens their eyes by proclaiming the word and breaking the bread. In the same
way, a Christian does not bear the burden of mission alone, but realizes, even
amid weariness and misunderstanding, that “Jesus walks with him, speaks to him,
breathes with him, works with him. He senses Jesus alive with him in the midst
of the missionary enterprise” (Evangelii Gaudium, 266).
Jesus makes the seed grow.
Finally, it is important to let the Gospel teach us the way of proclamation. At
times, even with the best intentions, we can indulge in a certain hunger for
power, proselytism or intolerant fanaticism. Yet the Gospel tells us to reject
the idolatry of power and success, undue concern for structures, and a kind of
anxiety that has more to do with the spirit of conquest than that of service.
The seed of the Kingdom, however tiny, unseen and at times insignificant,
silently continues to grow, thanks to God’s tireless activity. “The kingdom of
God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground, and should sleep or rise
night and day, and the seed should sprout and grow, he knows not how” (Mk 4:26-27). This is our first reason for
confidence: God surpasses all our expectations and constantly surprises us by
his generosity. He makes our efforts bear fruit beyond all human calculation.
With this confidence born of the Gospel, we become open to the
silent working of the Spirit, which is the basis of mission. There can be no
promotion of vocations or Christian mission apart from constant contemplative
prayer. The Christian life needs to be nourished by attentive listening to
God’s word and, above all, by the cultivation of a personal relationship with
the Lord in Eucharistic adoration, the privileged “place” for our encounter
with God.
I wish heartily to encourage this kind of profound friendship with
the Lord, above all for the sake of imploring from on high new vocations to the
priesthood and the consecrated life. The People of God need to be guided by
pastors whose lives are spent in service to the Gospel. I ask parish communities,
associations and the many prayer groups present in the Church, not to yield to
discouragement but to continue praying that the Lord will send workers to his
harvest. May he give us priests enamoured of the Gospel, close to all their
brothers and sisters, living signs of God’s merciful love.
Dear brothers and sisters, today too, we can regain fervour in
preaching the Gospel and we can encourage young people in particular to take up
the path of Christian discipleship. Despite a widespread sense that the faith
is listless or reduced to mere “duties to discharge”, our young people desire
to discover the perennial attraction of Jesus, to be challenged by his words
and actions, and to cherish the ideal that he holds out of a life that is fully
human, happy to spend itself in love.
Mary Most Holy, the Mother of our Saviour, had the courage to
embrace this ideal, placing her youth and her enthusiasm in God’s hands.
Through her intercession, may we be granted that same openness of heart, that
same readiness to respond, “Here I am”, to the Lord’s call, and that same joy
in setting out (cf. Lk 1:39), like her, to proclaim him to the
whole world.
From the Vatican, 27 November 2016
First Sunday of Advent
Franciscus
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