Once again this year October is the Month of the Missions in the Church. One of the documents that each Christian should have at hand is the encyclical letter of Blessed John Paul II, Redemptoris Missio. It is an important document that continues to call on the conscience of all the baptised, and shakes us from the torpor of a tired Christianity that is discouraged, self-referential, quietly content with self-preservation, and comfortable (someone called it “Christianity in slippers”). It exhorts us to direct our gaze towards the fascinating horizons of Christ’s missionary mandate: “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole creation” (Mk 16: 15). It is therefore worthwhile recalling some of its essential contents.
In our world today there is an increasing number of people who do not know Christ, both in the traditionally Christian countries and in the mission ad gentes countries largely in Africa and Asia. There is a growing need for missionary evangelisation that is “the primary service which the Church can render to every individual and to all humanity in the modern world” (Redemptoris Missio 1). In this situation – in many ways dramatic – the Pope asked for a renewal of missionary awareness in all the people of God. He strongly reaffirmed that “no believer in Christ, no institution of the Church can avoid this supreme duty: to proclaim Christ to all peoples” (Redemptoris Missio 3), and that “missionary activity is a matter for all Christians”, in particular the lay faithful, because “faith is strengthened when it is given to others!” (Redemptoris Missio 2).
The point of departure and reason for the missionary work of the Church is that “every person has the right to hear the ‘Good News’ of the God who reveals and gives himself in Christ, so that each one can live out in its fullness his or her proper calling” ((Redemptoris Missio 46). This right is matched by the clear duty of the baptised to evangelise the world, according to the words of the apostle to the gentiles: “For if I preach the gospel, that gives me no ground for boasting. For necessity is laid upon me. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!” (1 Cor 9: 16). In every age, and in our times more than ever, in order to take up the missionary challenge, the Church needs true witnesses of the Gospel. John Paul II quoted Paul VI when he said “people today put more trust in witnesses than in teachers, in experience than in teaching, and in life and action than in theories” ((Redemptoris Missio 42). The Pope reminded missionary witnesses that their duty is holiness. He said that “the future of mission depends to a great extent on contemplation. Unless the missionary is a contemplative he cannot proclaim Christ in a credible way” ((Redemptoris Missio 91).
The challenges the Church must face in our times in order to proclaim the Gospel are many and complex, and the Pope does not hide this fact. The message of Redemptoris Missio, however, is decisively positive and full of hope. In the encyclical letter, John Paul II, while pointing out the negative points that could lead to pessimism, encourages us by speaking of the arrival of “a great springtime for Christianity, and we can already see its first signs” (Redemptoris Missio 86). He concluded by saying: “Today, as never before, the Church has the opportunity of bringing the Gospel, by witness and word, to all people and nations. I see the dawning of a new missionary age, which will become a radiant day bearing an abundant harvest, if all Christians, and missionaries and young churches in particular, respond with generosity and holiness to the calls and challenges of our time” (Redemptoris Missio 92).
