Charity, the soul of the mission

22nd Missionary Day

On the eve of his Passion, Jesus left as a testament to his disciples, gathered in the Upper Room to celebrate Passover, the "new commandment of love." mandatum novum”: “This is my commandment: that you love one another” (Jo 15, 17).

The brotherly love that the Lord asks of his “friends” has its source in the paternal love of God. The Apostle John observes: “Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God” (1 John 4, 7). Therefore, to love according to God, it is necessary to live in Him and from Him: God is man's first "home," and only those who dwell in Him burn with the fire of divine charity, capable of "setting the world on fire." Is this not perhaps the mission of the Church of all times? Then it is not difficult to understand that authentic missionary solicitude, the primary commitment of the ecclesial community, is linked to fidelity to divine love, and this applies to each Christian, to each local community, to the particular Churches, and to all the People of God. Precisely from the awareness of this shared mission draws the vigor of the generous availability of Christ's disciples to carry out works of human and spiritual promotion that bear witness, as the beloved John Paul II wrote in the Encyclical Redemptoris missio, “"of the soul of all missionary activity: Love, which is and remains the true driving force of the mission, It also constitutes “the only criterion by which everything should be done or left undone, changed or maintained. It is the principle that should guide every action, and the end toward which it should tend. Acting from the perspective of charity or inspired by charity, nothing is improper and everything is good” (n. 60). Thus, to be a missionary means to love God with one's whole being to the point of giving, if necessary, one's life for Him. How many priests, religious men and women, and lay people, even in our time, have given the supreme witness of their love with martyrdom! To be a missionary means to bend down, like the Good Samaritan, to the adversities of all, especially the poorest and most needy, because whoever loves with the Heart of Christ does not seek their own interest, but only the glory of the Father and the good of their neighbor. Herein lies the secret of the apostolic fruitfulness of missionary action, which transcends borders and cultures, reaches peoples and spreads to the farthest reaches of the world.

Dear brothers and sisters, may World Mission Day be a useful occasion to understand ever better that the witness of love, the soul of mission, concerns everyone. Indeed, serving the Gospel should not be considered a solitary adventure, but a commitment shared by all communities. Alongside those who are on the front lines of evangelization—and here I think with gratitude of the missionaries—many others, children, young people, and adults, through their prayers and cooperation, contribute in various ways to the spread of the Kingdom of God on earth. 

(Pope Benedict XVI, message of the year 2006)