Mission involves prayer, not just care: Benedict

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – In a world marked by new forms of slavery and injustice, the Church must evangelise constantly and fearlessly – even in the face of persecution, Pope Benedict XVI said.

The Pope, addressing directors of the Pontifical Mission Societies on 14 May, said Catholic activity at every level needs to be infused with the missionary spirit.
“All the sectors of pastoral life, of catechesis and of charity should be characterised by the missionary dimension: the Church is mission,” he said. Evangelisation, he added, must begin with a firm faith and an enthusiastic desire to share it with others. The Church’s evangelisation efforts are aimed at “transforming the world according to God’s plan,” leading men and women to “real freedom” and out of all forms of slavery, he said. “New problems and new forms of slavery, in fact, are emerging in our time,” the Pope said. “This is true in the so-called First World, which is well-off and rich but uncertain about its future. And it is true in developing countries where, partly because of a globalisation that is often profit-driven, there’s an increase in the masses of poor, of emigrants and of the oppressed, in whom the light of hope grows weak.”
Pope Benedict said the duty to evangelise requires a “total love” of Christ and a willingness to sacrifice even one’s life in order to witness the Gospel. “Christians should not have fear, even if at present they are the religious group which suffers most from persecution on account of its faith,” he said, quoting from his 2011 World Peace Day message.
Oblate Fr Andrew Small, the newly appointed national director for the Pontifical Mission Societies in the US, said US Catholics continue to be the most generous donors to the Pope’s missionary projects, giving more than 40 per cent of the total raised worldwide.
Fr Small said that even in the Church, however, there’s a risk of overlooking the particular needs of evangelisation.
“Things have shifted. People are aware of the world and its needs more. I think we’ve forgotten the missionary needs. That was the way we looked at the world in the past: We saw it through the eyes of faith,” he said. Nowadays, he said, people often see the world’s needs through the lens of hunger or poverty or HIV/AIDS. “But we’re forgetting that when somebody needs their AIDS drugs, they might also want somebody to pray with them. I think we’ve neglected that side of it a little bit,” he said.
In his talk to the group, Pope Benedict warned of the “temptation to reduce evangelisation to a project that is merely human or social, hiding or passing over the transcendent dimension of the salvation offered by God in Christ.”