“"Here I am, send me"”

12th Missionary Day

«The mission, the “Church on the move,” is not a program, an intention achievable through willpower. It is Christ who makes the Church go forth from herself. In the mission of proclaiming the Gospel, you move because the Spirit impels and guides you. God is always the first to love us and, with this love, comes to meet us and calls us. Our personal vocation stems from the fact that we are sons and daughters of God in the Church, his family, brothers and sisters in that charity that Jesus witnessed to us. But everyone has a human dignity founded on the divine vocation to be children of God, to become, in the sacrament of Baptism and in the freedom of faith, what they have always been in the heart of God.”.

The Church, the universal sacrament of God's love for the world, prolongs Jesus' mission throughout history and sends us everywhere so that, through our witness of faith and the proclamation of the Gospel, God may continue to manifest his love and touch and transform hearts, minds, bodies, societies, and cultures in every time and place.

Mission is a free and conscious response to God's call. But we can only feel this call when we live in a personal relationship of love with Jesus alive in his Church. Let us ask ourselves: are we ready to welcome the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives, to hear the call to mission whether on the path of marriage, consecrated virginity, or ordained priesthood, and in any case, in the ordinary life of every day? Are we willing to be sent anywhere to witness to our faith in God the merciful Father, to proclaim the Gospel of salvation of Jesus Christ, to share the divine life of the Holy Spirit, building up the Church? Like Mary, the Mother of Jesus, are we ready to remain unreservedly at the service of God's will (cf. Lc 1, 38)? This inner readiness is very important in order to be able to respond to God: Here I am, Lord, send me (cf. Is 6, 8). And this is answered not in the abstract, but in the present day of the Church and of history.

God continues to seek people to send into the world and to the nations, in order to bear witness to his love, his salvation from sin and death, his liberation from evil (cf. Mt 9, 35-38; Lc 10, 1-11).

(Pope Francis, message for the year 2020)