MESSAGE OF
HIS HOLINESS FRANCIS
FOR WORLD MISSION DAY 2018
Together with young people, let us bring the
Gospel to all
Dear young people, I would like to reflect with
you on the mission that we have received from Christ. In speaking to you, I
also address all Christians who live out in the Church the adventure of their life
as children of God. What leads me to speak to everyone through this
conversation with you is the certainty that the Christian faith remains ever
young when it is open to the mission that Christ entrusts to us. “Mission
revitalizes faith” (Redemptoris Missio, 2), in the words of Saint John Paul II,
a Pope who showed such great love and concern for young people.
The Synod to be held in Rome this coming October,
the month of the missions, offers us an opportunity to understand more fully,
in the light of faith, what the Lord Jesus wants to say to you young people,
and, through you, to all Christian communities.
Life is a mission
Every man and woman is a mission; that is the
reason for our life on this earth. To be attracted and to be sent are two
movements that our hearts, especially when we are young, feel as interior
forces of love; they hold out promise for our future and they give direction to
our lives. More than anyone else, young people feel the power of life breaking
in upon us and attracting us. To live out joyfully our responsibility for the
world is a great challenge. I am well aware of lights and shadows of youth;
when I think back to my youth and my family, I remember the strength of my hope
for a better future. The fact that we are not in this world by our own choice
makes us sense that there is an initiative that precedes us and makes us exist.
Each one of us is called to reflect on this fact: “I am a mission on this
Earth; that is the reason why I am here in this world” (Evangelii Gaudium, 273).
We proclaim Jesus Christ
The Church, by proclaiming what she freely
received (cf. Mt 10:8; Acts 3:6), can share with you young people the way and
truth which give meaning to our life on this earth. Jesus Christ, who died and
rose for us, appeals to our freedom and challenges us to seek, discover and
proclaim this message of truth and fulfilment. Dear young people, do not be
afraid of Christ and his Church! For there we find the treasure that fills life
with joy. I can tell you this from my own experience: thanks to faith, I found
the sure foundation of my dreams and the strength to realize them. I have seen
great suffering and poverty mar the faces of so many of our brothers and
sisters. And yet, for those who stand by Jesus, evil is an incentive to ever
greater love. Many men and women, and many young people, have generously
sacrificed themselves, even at times to martyrdom, out of love for the Gospel
and service to their brothers and sisters. From the cross of Jesus we learn the
divine logic of self-sacrifice (cf. 1 Cor 1:17-25) as a proclamation of the
Gospel for the life of the world (cf. Jn 3:16). To be set afire by the love of
Christ is to be consumed by that fire, to grow in understanding by its light
and to be warmed by its love (cf. 2 Cor 5:14). At the school of the saints, who
open us to the vast horizons of God, I invite you never to stop wondering:
“What would Christ do if he were in my place?”
Transmitting the faith to the ends of the earth
You too, young friends, by your baptism have
become living members of the Church; together we have received the mission to
bring the Gospel to everyone. You are at the threshold of life. To grow in the
grace of the faith bestowed on us by the Church’s sacraments plunges us into
that great stream of witnesses who, generation after generation, enable the
wisdom and experience of older persons to become testimony and encouragement
for those looking to the future. And the freshness and enthusiasm of the young
makes them a source of support and hope for those nearing the end of their
journey. In this blend of different stages in life, the mission of the Church
bridges the generations; our faith in God and our love of neighbour are a
source of profound unity.
This transmission of the faith, the heart of the
Church’s mission, comes about by the infectiousness of love, where joy and
enthusiasm become the expression of a newfound meaning and fulfilment in life.
The spread of the faith “by attraction” calls for hearts that are open and
expanded by love. It is not possible to place limits on love, for love is
strong as death (cf. Song 8:6). And that expansion generates encounter,
witness, proclamation; it generates sharing in charity with all those far from
the faith, indifferent to it and perhaps even hostile and opposed to it. Human,
cultural and religious settings still foreign to the Gospel of Jesus and to the
sacramental presence of the Church represent the extreme peripheries, the “ends
of the earth”, to which, ever since the first Easter, Jesus’ missionary
disciples have been sent, with the certainty that their Lord is always with
them (cf. Mt 28:20; Acts 1:8). This is what we call the missio ad gentes. The
most desolate periphery of all is where mankind, in need of Christ, remains
indifferent to the faith or shows hatred for the fullness of life in God. All
material and spiritual poverty, every form of discrimination against our
brothers and sisters, is always a consequence of the rejection of God and his
love.
The ends of the earth, dear young people, nowadays
are quite relative and always easily “navigable”. The digital world – the
social networks that are so pervasive and readily available – dissolves
borders, eliminates distances and reduces differences. Everything appears
within reach, so close and immediate. And yet lacking the sincere gift of our
lives, we could well have countless contacts but never share in a true
communion of life. To share in the mission to the ends of the earth demands the
gift of oneself in the vocation that God, who has placed us on this earth,
chooses to give us (cf. Lk 9:23-25). I dare say that, for a young man or woman
who wants to follow Christ, what is most essential is to seek, to discover and
to persevere in his or her vocation.
Bearing witness to love
I am grateful to all those ecclesial groups that
make it possible for you to have a personal encounter with Christ living in his
Church: parishes, associations, movements, religious communities, and the
varied expressions of missionary service. How many young people find in
missionary volunteer work a way of serving the “least” of our brothers and
sisters (cf. Mt 25:40), promoting human dignity and witnessing to the joy of
love and of being Christians! These ecclesial experiences educate and train
young people not only for professional success, but also for developing and
fostering their God-given gifts in order better to serve others. These
praiseworthy forms of temporary missionary service are a fruitful beginning
and, through vocational discernment, they can help you to decide to make a
complete gift of yourselves as missionaries.
The Pontifical Mission Societies were born of
young hearts as a means of supporting the preaching of the Gospel to every
nation and thus contributing to the human and cultural growth of all those who
thirst for knowledge of the truth. The prayers and the material aid generously
given and distributed through the Pontifical Mission Societies enable the Holy
See to ensure that those who are helped in their personal needs can in turn
bear witness to the Gospel in the circumstances of their daily lives. No one is
so poor as to be unable to give what they have, but first and foremost what
they are. Let me repeat the words of encouragement that I addressed to the
young people of Chile: “Never think that you have nothing to offer, or that
nobody needs you. Many people need you. Think about it! Each of you, think in
your heart: “many people need me” (Meeting with Young People, Maipu Shrine, 17
January 2018).
Dear young people, this coming October, the month
of the missions, we will hold the Synod devoted to you. It will prove to be one
more occasion to help us become missionary disciples, ever more passionately
devoted to Jesus and his mission, to the ends of the earth. I ask Mary, Queen
of the Apostles, Saint Francis Xavier, Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus and
Blessed Paolo Manna to intercede for all of us and to accompany us always.
From the Vatican, 20 May 2018, Solemnity of
Pentecost
FRANCIS
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