Vatican releases message for World Mission Sunday
After taking a closer look at the situation of today’s world the Pope writes, “… the missionary mandate continues to be an absolute priority for all baptized persons who are called to be “servants and apostles of Christ Jesus” at the beginning of this millennium.”
“Let us take a closer look at the situation of today’s world. While, on the one hand, the international panorama presents prospects for promising economic and social development, on the other it brings some great concerns to our attention about the very future of man. Violence, in many cases, marks the relations between persons and peoples. Poverty oppresses millions of inhabitants. Discrimination and sometimes even persecution for racial, cultural and religious reasons drive many people to flee from their own countries in order to seek refuge and protection elsewhere. Technological progress, when it is not aimed at the dignity and good of man or directed towards solidarity-based development, loses its potentiality as a factor of hope and runs the risk, on the contrary, of increasing already existing imbalances and injustices. There is, moreover, a constant threat regarding the man-environment relation due to the indiscriminate use of resources, with repercussions on the physical and mental health of human beings. Humanity’s future is also put at risk by the attempts on his life, which take on various forms and means.
Before this scenario, “buffeted between hope and anxiety… and burdened down with uneasiness” (Gaudium et Spes, n. 4), with concern we ask ourselves: What will become of humanity and creation? Is there hope for the future, or rather, is there a future for humanity? And what will this future be like? The answer to these questions comes to those of us who believe from the Gospel. Christ is our future, and as I wrote in the Encyclical Letter Spe Salvi, his Gospel is a “life-changing” communication that gives hope, throws open the dark door of time and illuminates the future of humanity and the university (cf. n. 2).
Humanity is in need of liberation…
The Mission is a question of love…
Evangelize always…
Woe to me if I do not preach it! (1 Cor 9: 16)…