Christ calls in order to send.  To be a disciple of Jesus is not a privilege per se but a service for the kingdom of God.  Jesus sends His disciples to “announce” that the kingdom of God is close at hand.

THE MISSION: AN ANNOUNCEMENT OF HOPE

Man aspires towards peace, but he makes wars.  He wants to be loved and to love, but often he is not loved and does not love.  Man wants justice, equality, but perpetrates injustice and heats unjust and oppressive structures.

In the profundity of his being man is in search of the living God but he produces dead idols, denies and rejects the   Source.    Man wants the fullness of life at all levels, unending and instead he meets with sickness and death.

The disciple of Christ announces that the bitterest contradictions of existence shall be resolved, that the most profound aspirations of man shall be realized “through the gratuitous intervention of God” in an unheard of and unsuspected manner bring total victory over evil.  That which is impossible to man, is possible to God (1R).  Salvation is announced and realized in a world dominated by the logic of sin.  For this salvation has a negative moment: liberation from all demonic forces that alienate man from himself and from God (Gosp).  This salvation shall not be realized suddenly.  Evil shall be defeated immediately.  It is not to be fought with mighty armies using power as the Jews thought.

THE CROSS IS THE GLORY OF MISSIONARIES

The messenger of salvation is found among these demonic forces, “he is like a lamb among wolves”.  There is no mission without persecution, without sufferings, without the cross.  The cross is the “glory” of the missionary and of every Christian (2R) because it puts him in a new existence.  The cross “for the kingdom of God”, accepted with love is the “sign” of victory over evil and death.  For the Christian the certainty of his resurrection rests in the fact that he is crucified by trials and contests.  Trial is not, for St. Paul, only mystical practice, an occasion of moral life and neither a simple imitation of the cross of Christ.  It is the place of hope and prophecy of the kingdom which comes and that the messengers of the gospel proclaim with word and life to confirm that the new world is already initiated and that it is possible.

SIGNS OF THE NEW WORLD

To the logic of the old world is opposed the logic of God.  In a world of wolves, dominated by aggressiveness, their presence is a radical condemnation of bestial violence.  In a world in which “man is the money he has and the clothes he puts on, they are poorly dressed, without purses and luggages, contented with the hospitality they receive.   The nearness of the Kingdom dispenses them from preoccupation with the earthly future.  Their poverty has a prophetic significance, like the cure of the sick.  The sign that the Kingdom of God is present is the fact that man is liberated from sin and its consequences.  This liberation is, however, slow and, in order to be realized, demands suffering, patience and death.  It is not a triumphal liberation as the contemporaries of Jesus thought.

FAITHFULNESS TO CHRIST, NOT SUCCESS, IS ESSENTIAL

The proclamation of Christian salvation is one of the many signs present in the contemporary world.  Each of the blocks in which humanity is divided has its own vision of history and avails itself of an extraordinary capacity of publicity and propaganda to inform “others” of its good news of salvation.  The Church on the other hand presents the proclamation with humbly means.  If she does it under aspect of “power”, it is rejected by modern man.  But her message, strictly religious, speaks to a prejudice mentality.  Men of our time think that recourse to God is an alienation.   They accept from the Church only a moral ideal of universal fraternity but at the service of man in the struggle for justice and peace.  The sacrifice which leads to salvation is a bitter pill to swallow.  This situation is reason of disturbance for the Christian conscious that the Good News of salvation acquired in Jesus Christ cannot be reduced to a moral ideal of universal fraternity.  What is to be done?  Do we silence the authentic gospel in expectation of better days?  Impossible!  But where, when and how is it to be proclaimed today?

What the Lord asks of us is faithfulness to Him, to His message and His style of proclamation.  He does not assure us of success.

God bless you!

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