Adaptation by Fr. Lerma of the article,
“On Being Mission Promoters Today”
by Meo Elia in Missione Oggi,
November 1994, pp.59-65.

Introduction

When we speak of mission promotion and of mission promoters, we want to talk about our Christian communities, about our local churches. The purpose of that promotion is to make the churches aware that they must concretize, live and experience at all levels the missionary dimension, which is a constituent element of the Church.

We must keep this essential component of the Church alive. We missionaries have founded Christian communities, we established churches. It is also our duty to keep alive the fire of the mission in these young churches, that they too may extend their missionary action beyond their own geographical frontiers.

That is indeed our mission, even if those young churches are not fully developed in personnel, in structures and in means. The Holy Spirit gave us this special sensitivity, this specific vocation. This is our ad gentes charism, a charism that we, in this third stage of the evangelization of Africa, must offer to the churches of that continent.

It is important for us to understand our place in the Church. We have to live these changes also at the level of our Institute. In the past, we didn’t hear anyone speak about mission and vocation promotion in the various regions of Africa. That was something exclusive to Europe and Latin America. The Holy Spirit now calls us, who are missionaries in Africa, to live this dimension in strong fashion, in a clear way, even if the details are different, so that we may become a call to being and to action to all communities and their baptized members. We must be persons who summon, people who make the churches we serve understand their missionary dimension.

Our task is specifically important because the young Churches in Africa are now going through a new stage in the history of evangelization. The times of their first encounter with Christianity are passed, the so-called times of the pioneers, even if there still is much to do in the countries where we work. Just about everywhere, the churches are poor in personnel and in organization, or are still in need of consolidation. Meanwhile, other churches there are already capable of advancing by using their own resources. In this diversity of circumstances and cultural and religious contexts, missionary sensitivity must be made present. The Churches of Jerusalem and Antioch did not wait until they were perfectly organized to extend their missionary action outside their borders. Rather, right from the start, they sent out their best (Paul and Barnabas).

In the history of the Church, we know of newly-baptized Christians, and even catechumens, who collaborated in the announcement of the Gospel outside their own countries. Some catechists of Malawi, for example, when they learned of the arrival of the Consolata missionaries in Nyassa, Mozambique, took their catechumens with them in order to be baptized. There are many other such cases.

On this topic, here is what the apostolic post-synodal exhortation Ecclesia in Africa says:
“The Church in Africa is not called to bear witness to Christ only on its continent; for to it the Risen Lord also says: ‘You shall be my witnesses to the ends of the earth’ (Acts 1:8). For this very reason, during their discussions of the Synod’s theme, the Fathers carefully avoided every tendency to isolationism by the Church in Africa; … (but) they acknowledged God’s call to Africa to play its full part, at the world level, in his plan for the salvation of the human race.” (Cf. 1 Tim 2:4). (No. 128).

In the same exhortation Ecclesia in Africa, we read:
“No particular Church, not even the poorest, can ever be dispensed from the obligation of sharing its personnel as well as its spiritual and temporal resources with other particular Churches and with the Universal Church” (Cf. Acts 2:44-45). (No. 129).
The prophetic sentence by Paul VI, “You Africans are missionaries to yourselves,’ is to be understood as ‘missionaries to the whole world…’ An appeal was launched to the particular Churches of Africa for mission outside the confines of their own dioceses. (Ib. No. 129).

The same document continues: “…It is fitting that young Churches should participate as soon as possible in the universal missionary work of the Church. Let them send their own missionaries to proclaim the Gospel all over the world, even though they themselves are suffering from a shortage of clergy.” (Ib. No. 130).

This our task is very important today: we must prepare and accompany this new missionary stage in Africa.

Difficulties

We missionaries have a little bit the impression that the potentialities of the traditional conception of the mission as it was are now being faded out. Times have changed, political and social situations of peoples are no longer the same, the theology of the mission and pastoral theology are different from what they used to be. Globalization, post-modernity, inculturation, all these are new words that cater to world change. But the dramatic situations of our peoples go on: wars, poverty, underdevelopment.

Today, the face of the mission has changed. We have been purified, or we are purifying ourselves, of those motivations of mission that caused exasperation by dwelling on the negative aspects of cultures other religions. We are finally free from certain involvements with colonialism and we have surpassed the proselitism in relation to the Church of the Reformation. We now have a different view of non-Christian religions and of cultures in general.

But we must accompany and prepare this new missionary stage of the Church in Africa. We must go to the authentic roots, the deep roots of the mission: the Gospel, the Missio Dei, the Missio Trintatis, Christ, the Church, we ourselves, the world – that is to say, the true motivations, such as our idea of what it means to be a Christian, the nature of the Church, the why the Church itself exists.

The Challenges

The challenges consist of the obstacles to our work. Here, it is question of identifying several of the challenges that we meet in this new missionary stage of the Church, challenges that must be confronted. We will identify some.

In the analysis of the reality that we will do, you will yourselves identify some of the most concrete challenges to your daily work.

1. Overcoming the religious individualism which is still present in us and in our communities.
This attitude is the fruit of the theology and the spirituality that were prevalent during the times of our formation and that have shaped us profoundly.

Christians live their rapport with God, their call, the sacred mysteries, the sacraments and prayer as private events, meaning, a gospel that does not concern external reality, but only an internal one: the soul (to save souls). This individualism is more common than we think, and it affects the way we feel as members of the Church, members of the community and the ways we organize our parishes. There are dangers of existential pastoral activities and service of the individuals which are extremely limited in their prophetic pastoral aspects.
The first challenge is to assimilate a new ecclesial auto-conscience, that is, a deep awareness of what it means to be disciples of Christ, to be Church, to be Christians in the world.
How can we get this new auto-conscience? Only by developing a missionary spirituality. It is a question of a new spirituality, rather than of organization, a spirituality that is sensitive to the great principles of the conciliar renewal. It is important that these capillary principles become accessible to everyone: Church as people of God, Church communion, ministerial Church, Church service.

2 Christianity is not a question of philantropy and solidarity.
Under this aspect, Jesus, appears only as Master of great doctrines and ethical values. It is clear that the Christian faith implies engagement and solidarity in all the situations of human affliction: slavery, injustice, under-development, marginalization, violence, wars, and conflicts of many kinds. This dimension is a fundamental component of evangelization, but first and foremost, faith means to let oneself be loved by God and to welcome his decision to love us. God loved us the first. We must answer by simultaneously loving Him and the brethren in one unified movement of love. This is the essential content of our faith. In this sense, faith helps us understand that people, beginning with the poorest, need God’s solidarity, besides needing our solidarity. He is the root of all consolation, he is the consoler of his people.
Besides, it is an illusion to think that one can love as if love were only a natural quality. Only by welcoming the love of God who gave himself into our hands, who became one of us and gave his life for us, only then will we be able to give ourselves, to become brothers to the brothers, to acquire for all the brethren a deep sense of solidarity, even to shed our blood for them.
It’s not a question of giving and doing, but of loving. We must, more and more, insist on interpersonal relations, on concrete gestures. In every initiative, we must show ourselves as signs of God’s love, the love of the God who loves not only us but everyone.

PERSPECTIVES

To acquire a new auto-conscience for the Church. This must be done at all levels: intellectual, affective, spiritual, personal, communitary.
Here are some questions:
What does Church mean in mission promotion?
What kind of vocation do we present to people as the vocation of each Christian?
What does it mean to be present in the world?
What kind of responsibility do our communities have towards the mission beyond the frontiers of our country?
What can our churches do since they are so poor in personnel, structures and means?

ELLEMENTS OF THE NEW AUTO-CONSCIENCE

1 Awareness

The first element is the awareness and the acceptance of the fact that God loved us first. He took the initiative, he loved us to the utmost. This is the starting point of the life of the Christian. It’s here that the mission is born. Even if it seems so obvious, this essential element is often overlooked, other elements are given more weight, elements that are important but not primary. The new ecclesial auto-conscience, fundamental in this missionary stage in Africa, has its deepest and truest roots here.

2 Plan of love

The love of God-Trinity (God—family, in a love relation) is expansive, it is communicated to peoples everywhere: for that reason, it belongs to everybody, it is not reserved to any people, it does not belong exclusively to any people. All have the right to know about it, to receive it. It is a love for all people. God wants everyone to be saved and reach the knowledge of the Truth. This has always been God’s will, God’s plan, of which we are instruments.

3 Pedagogy

There is a basic pedagogy that we must follow in our mission and vocation promotion.
In Sacred Scripture, it comes out clear that the election of a people (Israel), on God’s part is made out of love for the other peoples. This election is made in function of the others: it is the sign of what God has in mind for all humanity. Consequently, Christian communities do not exist for themselves, as if they were closed religious groups, ghettos. We are Church for others. When we say Church, we cannot only think about being called. Rather we are called to be sent to the others. The Church is always in mission. We must animate our communities and our local churches in this way of thinking even when they still are very young and poor.

Christian life seen as missionary pedagogy.
The gift of awareness is accompanied by the gift of the capacity of responding to God’s love. Christian life should look like something totally new and unheard of, so that the Spirit of God, if welcomed, is able to create people who have a new heart, a heart similar to the heart of Christ: people who are capble of welcoming God and neighbor, capable of loving even their enemies, capable of giving consolation, of giving themselves, capable of freedom. Thus will communities become missionary. This kind of life unveils the sensitivity of each person and announces, via one’s life, what is really the vocation of all. This is the meaning of a community animated by mission.

Jesus’ intention was to form a new people for God, a new family that would show by its behavior what it means to be guided by the Lord’s teaching and to be motivated by the Spirit. Thus would this people attract the other peoples by its style of life. Jesus indicated the basic elements for the communities to show that style of life, elements that are driven by a logic that is different from other logics: elimination of the dominating rapport (Mk 10:42—45),; renouncing violence (Mt 5:39-42; 1 Cor 6:7)); going beyond social limits (Gal 3:26—29; 1 Cor 12:12ff); the praxis of solidarity (Gal 6:2; Col 3:13; 1 Cor 12:5; 1 Tess 5:12—13).
These elements constitute a strong criticism and they challenge the mentality and the praxis of our societies that are closed within their own interests.

In the early days of Christianity they spoke about the fascination and admiration that people had for the Christian communities, and of the Christian communities’ capacity for attracting others by the fact that their style of life differed from the style of life of the society of those days. I believe that this missionary praxis is still valid. It is the normal cycle of a community. In Jesus’ teachings and in the experience of the first Christian communities, the idea of mission by irradiation emerges. That is to say, mission was carried out by communities that became attractive because of their style of life. At the same time, the mission by irradiation is always accompanied by another missionary attitude: the mission by sending-off – mission by commission.
Irradiation can be done by a community that already exists in a certain place. If it does not exist, it must begin: someone is called by the Spirit and is sent from the community to announce the Gospel to other peoples where there still aren’t any Christian communities. The commissioned one leaves the boundaries of the community and goes to another people, engages in solidarity, penetrates, accompanies their life projects, and there, from within, announces the Gospel. If anyone welcomes it, a new Christian community is born. The new Christian communities that are born, in turn, live the mission by irradiation and by commission. This is our task, our mission promotion ministry.

Fr. Francisco Lerma Martínez