Money And Mission: A Not Always Easy Relationship

A few decades ago during the colonial rule in Africa, and also more recently during the economic boom in the Western World, it came natural to many missionaries to confront the reality of well-being in many European countries and the precarious situation in mission territories. In the context of mission promotion, it was easy to paint in dark tones the state of poverty in mission territories, so as to stir up the generosity of Christians in Europe and North America.
With the passing of time, and after some not too positive experiences, the rapport between missionary and money and other material means became more cautious, if not outright pessimistic. Missionaries understood that money could not always solve the complex problems of social justice; also, the structures raised at the cost of much sweat and with the sacrifices of the benefactors, often did not measure up to the foreseen objectives, and sometimes even acted like boomerangs against the missionaries. Private interests too, corruption, bureaucracy and alike contributed to render useless "our work". Notwithstanding our efforts and our originality and imagination that would often come up with new mechanisms of development, it was clear that these things did not change much the lot of the poor.
If we consider the problem from the standpoint of the "mother" Churches, missionaries often felt a certain malaise in front of this praxis, and not because it was hard for them to beg for the poor. They became aware that the problem "money" often monopolized their mission dialogue, so much so that to say 'mission' was, for many Christians, equal to saying 'money'. How could they efficiently communicate to God's people such messages as: mission means to announce Christ, we're all responsible for the mission, Christ still calls to the mission…? And how could they propose to today's society such themes as justice, solidarity, peace…?
The generosity of the Christian people towards the poor, and the collections taken up in their favor, do have New-Testamental roots. Christian generosity and collections for the poor were not on the defendant's bench. The critical sensitivity against money and other means for the missions was caused by the excessive emphasis placed on them, or because of a lack of moderation that lowered the importance of other values.
Here are some of the main challenges that often come up in this area, that come up every time we ponder our relationship with material goods in the context of our missionary work:
- An excessive flowing of aid might slow down the maturing of young Christian communities that, rather than teaching their own members to become self-sufficient, keep on leaning on means collected somewhere else.
- Missionary work risks losing its transparency and evangelical witnessing to the eyes of neophytes and non-Christians. Unfortunately, what often is more easily noticed in missionary work is not human and Christian solidarity towards the other brethren, but rather a certain climate of business and easy riches.
- An evangelization that is accompanied by lots of money and many other material means does not develop a sense of responsibility in the faithful. The Church is not sensed as one's "home". Furthermore, the Christian community does not feel spurred on to face the challenges and problems proper to their milieu, because there always is someone on top who thinks things out, someone who makes the decisions and puts them into practice…
- The missionary who is rich might build defensive barriers that isolate and protect him from the people: thus, he avoids situations of precariousness and poverty because he wants to shun any danger. The rich tend to seek isolation, create ghettos and build superiority pedestals. It is difficult indeed to establish mutual trust relationships and rapports of true friendship and fraternity between the 'rich' missionary and the poor.
- Internationality is growing in our Institute: some missionaries keep on living as the rich do, barriers will be erected among members of our missionary family. This will have harmful consequences on the family spirit and on the work of evangelization.

The Courage of Conversion

Our behavior in doing mission is not to be dictated by psychological motives, and our life style should not be imposed by strategical schemes. To be sure, today we are sent to do mission by the One who told His missionaries: "Go! Behold I am sending you as lambs in the midst of wolves. Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals. Stay in that house, eat and drink what they provide, for the laborer deserves his wages. Do not go back and forth from house to house" (Luke 10:3, 7). Jesus' teaching, His style of life and His way of evangelizing: These things must guide us in fashioning our apostolic methodology. This we must do while keeping in touch with the realities of modern times, with today's challenges and the present world. From Vatican II on, the Church has always encouraged Religious Orders and Congregations to live a more austere way of life and a better adherence to the evangelical value of poverty. Our Constitutions and many other documents of our Institute during these past years have kept on calling us to live a different style of life that will help us concretize a more efficient kind of evangelization. Keeping in mind what was said above, and examining it in the light of our documents, we are now going to recall, briefly, some doctrinal directives relative to the use of material goods:
1. We read in St. Paul that, "When the time had fully come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, to redeem those who were under the Law, so that we might receive adoption as sons" (Gal 4:4-5). The mystery of the Incarnation is the basis of the Christian announcement and the direction that every apostolic praxis must follow. his mystery seems to suggest that power, efficiency, success and material means cannot be the measure, the criteria and the strength of missionary strategy. The Word of God became a man, but He also became a child, helpless, needy. Wanting to fulfill the mission the Father gave Him, He used the means that poor people know how to use, and not those that would make Him popular, that would give Him an image, make Him efficient. When Peter tries to dissuade Him from going ahead with His plan, the Master uses strong words (Cfr. Mark 8:39-39), because He wants the same kind of mission to be used by his disciples: "As you sent me into the world, so I send them" (John 17:18). In Matthew we read: "Whoever does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for my sake will find it" (Mt 10:38-39). The cross was the way Christ chose to save us. But he also chose it as the way to be used by anyone who follows Him in bringing salvation to the world: The cross that saves, the cross that reconciles, and the cross that also kills, that divides, that causes persecution.
2. From the cathedra of our "abundance" we will never be able to preach the cross of Jesus Christ to the masses of the poor, we won't be able to to give credibility and meaning to the words of the Gospel. We can then ask ourselves: How will our way of doing mission be judged by the cross of Jesus Christ? The missions that we form, often effort at the cost of much, will they attract the attention of people because they are similar to the style of mission that Jesus wanted to communicate through his cross? "God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are" (1 Cor 1:27-28). Thus expresses his credo the convert of the way to Damascus, the greatest missionary of the primitive Church. Power, wisdom, things of this world - they are not the things that save. We can't fool people by giving them our 'things': God alone saves! "When I am weak, that's when I am strong" (2 Cor 12:10): Pauline logics destroys many of our buildings in efficiency, our attempts to self-fulfillment, our wishes of vainglory.
3. Evangelization is our suprema lex. Above any other interest, personal or not, we should welcome whatever favors and helps evangelization. Efficiency will never prevail over whatever renders apostolic works authentic, just as evangelical witnessing must always be above any project and action of ours. Courageously, we must ask ourselves whether the time has come to get rid of certain weights and hurdles that we pile up on our evangelizing tracks, as asked by our IX General Chapter: "To follow a style of life that is poor in its structures and simple in its work programs and in the use of material goods, and to listen to the queries and the sensibility of the poor" (32.1). Resisting these capitular directives could be caused by the culture of consumerism today present everywhere. We must react courageously to this situation, we must appeal to our conscience as disciples and to our apostolic know-how. If we must reach a conversion, it should come from our confrontation with Jesus of Nazareth, not with the milieu or the people that surround us.
4. "Let our missionaries be encouraged, also by the community, to live more austere forms of poverty in relation to the demands of the milieu." (Constitutions, 44). "We wish that there be among us a greater radicalism in the practice of poverty. In our relationship with God, in our community life, in our apostolic action we intend to share our life with the poor whose values are for us a school of spirituality" (IXGC 54). "The mission is impossible without being 'for' and 'with' the poor". "Poverty determines the premises of consecrated life through a sobriety and style of life that favor solidarity, sharing and nearness to people" (XGC, 30). If these statements are to affect our method of action or our apostolic praxis, they must be allowed to generate in us deep convictions which, must have their root in the perennial values of faith in Christ and in consecrated life. Our Constitutions and our General Chapters encourage us to enter into more austere forms of poverty and nearness to the poor. These forms of poverty must find their expression in fraternal and serene acceptance of new experiences that must be approved by our Institute. These experiences, quasi labs for a new way of living the mission and announcing Christ to the peoples, must be favored and encouraged by the Regions in an enlighted and courageous discernment.
Our Institute, together with the Consolata Missionary Sisters, chose for 2003 the Blessed Paolo Manna as our special patron saint. May his teaching, audacious and prophetic in the area of missionary poverty, spur each one to begin a serious revision of his own life, in all fidelity to the missionary vocation and the call of Christ who wants us near to the poor and interdependent with them.