In the gospel of Luke, we have the great mission statement of Jesus: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me 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, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” Lk4:18. It sums up the whole mission of Jesus.  It is this same mission that Jesus entrusted to apostles, when he sent them with the mandate to proclaim the good news: “Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation” (Mk16:15).

This mission mandate of Jesus is for all Christians. On this missionary vocation of every Christians we read in YOUCAT (No.11): “No genuine Christian leaves the transmission of the faith exclusively to specialists (teachers, pastors, missionaries).  Every Christian would like God to come to other people too.”  Mother Teresa used a simple and interesting comparison to teach us about our missionary responsibility: “Often you can see power lines running alongside the street. Unless current is flowing through them, there is no light. The power line is you and I! The current is God! We have the power to allow the current to flow through us and thus to generate the light of world: JESUS – or to refuse to be used and, thus, allow the darkness to spread.”

St. Vincent, as young priest after his many years of spiritual and interior struggle, at last he was convinced of his call to continue the mission of Jesus.  It is this conviction of mission mandate of Jesus that gave him the energy and zeal to do all those great works.  As a Christian, or as a priest or as a religious, each one of us are called to continue the same mission of Jesus, in the life God wants us to lead. To grow in the Vincentian charism is to grow in this conviction that God has called us to continue the mission of Jesus in our time and place.

About the Author:

Fr. Binoy Puthusery, C.M. is a Vincentian priest belonging to the Southern Indian Province. He was ordained as priest on December 27, 2008 and soon after served as an assistant parish priest in Tanzania.  In 2011, after two years of ministry, he was appointed as Spiritual Director to the Vincentian Sisters of Mercy, Mbinga Tanzania. He currently lives in Barakaldo (Spain), and is a teacher in the Masters in Vincentian Studies.