Catholic Church in the World - Missionary Animation
Message of Pope Francis (World Mission Sunday 2021)
Francis-Mission Sunday 2021 Message.docx
Statistics Catholic(Universal) Church 2021
Dossier ITA: Dossier_Statistiche_2021.pdf
Dossier ENG: WORLD_MISSION_DAY_-_CATHOLIC_CHURCH_STATISTICS_2021.docx.docx
Cardinal Tagle on the Mission Sunday Message
"We cannot keep to ourselves the encounter with God who has touched our hearts and who has done marvelous works.
Like the apostles, let us share the love that we have experienced. What we have received from God is a gift to others. And the more we share it, the more our faith grows. If we keep it to ourselves, our faith weakens over time. If we keep it in a small group, it becomes the business of an elite. Missionaries are inspired by the love of God to come out of themselves, of their fears, to reach all nations, geographical and existential. For a fundamental reason: gratitude. They are grateful people", decalred Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, during the presentation of World Mission Day, which was held today, October 21, at the Vatican.
Cardinal Tagle commented on Pope Francis' Message for World Mission Sunday, entitled "It is impossible for us not to speak about what we have seen and heard" (Acts 4:20), from the Acts of the Apostles. He said: "Looking at the episode of Peter and John, recounted in Acts, we can ask ourselves: what is the secret of the missionary zeal of the apostles? It is the experience of the love of God in Christ. They experienced friendship with Jesus, they saw how Jesus lived and shared his life. The deep experience of Jesus leads to a 'state of mission' in which mission is a reflection of gratitude, not a burden or even a purely functional or pragmatic act. It is an expression of joy and gratitude to God for the wonderful things he has done for us. Having seen and experienced all of this, the apostles are missionaries of compassion and hope". The Prefect of "Propaganda Fide" underlined that "spirituality and the encounter with God are the source of the missionary, who is always rooted in Christ. He tells 'a story of love', lived with Jesus and brings compassion from Christ to the world". Referring, then to the missionary challenges in today's world and society, the Cardinal declared that "as the Holy Father says, the encounter with Christ and his Gospel generates openness and communion towards one's neighbor: the experience of Christ does not builds walls, separating us from others, but pushes us towards others with joy, not as conquerors in a triumphalistic sense, but in the sense of sharing the goodness of what we have seen, heard, experienced.
We must recover this aspect: the mission is in the heart of each one of us, each baptized person is a missionary of the Kingdom of God, the mission is a call for all the baptized". The Cardinal recalled the work of evangelization in various regions of the world such as Asia, where he himself came from, where Christians are a small minority, stressing how precious "the personal relationship, the proclamation and the person-to-person sharing of faith"; finally, referring to evangelization also in contexts of ancient Christian tradition such as Europe, which are experiencing moments of "de-Christianization", the Cardinal said that "we must above all pray because faith is a gift of the Holy Spirit. The Gospel teaches us to love, even in small daily gestures and in small things. Small gestures of love should not be minimized, a simple gesture of love evangelizes". (PA) (Agenzia Fides,
Statistics on World Mission Sunday 2020
Dossier ENG: Catholic_Church_Statistics_2020_-_ENG.pdf.pdf
Dossier ITA: Dossier_Statistiche_della_Chiesa_2020_-_ITA.pdf.pdf
MESSAGE OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS
FOR WORLD MISSION DAY 2020
Here am I, send me (Is 6:8)
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
I wish to express my gratitude to God for the commitment with which the Church throughout the world carried out the Extraordinary Missionary Month last October. I am convinced that it stimulated missionary conversion in many communities on the path indicated by the theme: “Baptized and Sent: the Church of Christ on Mission in the World”.
In this year marked by the suffering and challenges created by the Covid-19 pandemic, the missionary journey of the whole Church continues in light of the words found in the account of the calling of the prophet Isaiah: “Here am I, send me” (6:8). This is the ever new response to the Lord’s question: “Whom shall I send?” (ibid.). This invitation from God’s merciful heart challenges both the Church and humanity as a whole in the current world crisis. “Like the disciples in the Gospel we were caught off guard by an unexpected, turbulent storm. We have realized that we are on the same boat, all of us fragile and disoriented, but at the same time important and needed, all of us called to row together, each of us in need of comforting the other. On this boat… are all of us. Just like those disciples, who spoke anxiously with one voice, saying ‘We are perishing’ (v. 38), so we too have realized that we cannot go on thinking of ourselves, but only together can we do this” (Meditation in Saint Peter’s Square, 27 March 2020). We are indeed frightened, disoriented and afraid. Pain and death make us experience our human frailty, but at the same time remind us of our deep desire for life and liberation from evil. In this context, the call to mission, the invitation to step out of ourselves for love of God and neighbour presents itself as an opportunity for sharing, service and intercessory prayer. The mission that God entrusts to each one of us leads us from fear and introspection to a renewed realization that we find ourselves precisely when we give ourselves to others.
In the sacrifice of the cross, where the mission of Jesus is fully accomplished (cf. Jn 19:28-30), God shows us that his love is for each and every one of us (cf. Jn 19:26-27). He asks us to be personally willing to be sent, because he himself is Love, love that is always “on mission”, always reaching out in order to give life. Out of his love for us, God the Father sent his Son Jesus (cf. Jn 3:16). Jesus is the Father’s Missionary: his life and ministry reveal his total obedience to the Father’s will (cf. Jn 4:34; 6:38; 8:12-30; Heb 10:5-10). Jesus, crucified and risen for us, draws us in turn into his mission of love, and with his Spirit which enlivens the Church, he makes us his disciples and sends us on a mission to the world and to its peoples.
“The mission, the ‘Church on the move’, is not a programme, an enterprise to be carried out by sheer force of will. It is Christ who makes the Church go out of herself. In the mission of evangelization, you move because the Holy Spirit pushes you, and carries you” (Senza di Lui non possiamo fare nulla: Essere missionari oggi nel mondo. Una conversazione con Gianni Valente, Libreria Editrice Vaticana: San Paolo, 2019, 16-17). God always loves us first and with this love comes to us and calls us. Our personal vocation comes from the fact that we are sons and daughters of God in the Church, his family, brothers and sisters in that love that Jesus has shown us. All, however, have a human dignity founded on the divine invitation to be children of God and to become, in the sacrament of Baptism and in the freedom of faith, what they have always been in the heart of God.
Life itself, as a gift freely received, is implicitly an invitation to this gift of self: it is a seed which, in the baptized, will blossom as a response of love in marriage or in virginity for the kingdom of God. Human life is born of the love of God, grows in love and tends towards love. No one is excluded from the love of God, and in the holy sacrifice of Jesus his Son on the cross, God conquered sin and death (cf. Rom 8:31-39). For God, evil – even sin – becomes a challenge to respond with even greater love (cf. Mt 5:38-48; Lk 22:33-34). In the Paschal Mystery, divine mercy heals our wounded humanity and is poured out upon the whole universe. The Church, the universal sacrament of God’s love for the world, continues the mission of Jesus in history and sends us everywhere so that, through our witness of faith and the proclamation of the Gospel, God may continue to manifest his love and in this way touch and transform hearts, minds, bodies, societies and cultures in every place and time.
Mission is a free and conscious response to God’s call. Yet we discern this call only when we have a personal relationship of love with Jesus present in his Church. Let us ask ourselves: are we prepared to welcome the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives, to listen to the call to mission, whether in our life as married couples or as consecrated persons or those called to the ordained ministry, and in all the everyday events of life? Are we willing to be sent forth at any time or place to witness to our faith in God the merciful Father, to proclaim the Gospel of salvation in Jesus Christ, to share the divine life of the Holy Spirit by building up the Church? Are we, like Mary, the Mother of Jesus, ready to be completely at the service of God’s will (cf. Lk 1:38)? This interior openness is essential if we are to say to God: “Here am I, Lord, send me” (cf. Is 6:8). And this, not in the abstract, but in this chapter of the life of the Church and of history.
Understanding what God is saying to us at this time of pandemic also represents a challenge for the Church’s mission. Illness, suffering, fear and isolation challenge us. The poverty of those who die alone, the abandoned, those who have lost their jobs and income, the homeless and those who lack food challenge us. Being forced to observe social distancing and to stay at home invites us to rediscover that we need social relationships as well as our communal relationship with God. Far from increasing mistrust and indifference, this situation should make us even more attentive to our way of relating to others. And prayer, in which God touches and moves our hearts, should make us ever more open to the need of our brothers and sisters for dignity and freedom, as well as our responsibility to care for all creation. The impossibility of gathering as a Church to celebrate the Eucharist has led us to share the experience of the many Christian communities that cannot celebrate Mass every Sunday. In all of this, God’s question: “Whom shall I send?” is addressed once more to us and awaits a generous and convincing response: “Here am I, send me!” (Is 6:8). God continues to look for those whom he can send forth into the world and to the nations to bear witness to his love, his deliverance from sin and death, his liberation from evil (cf. Mt 9:35-38; Lk 10:1-12).
The celebration of World Mission Day is also an occasion for reaffirming how prayer, reflection and the material help of your offerings are so many opportunities to participate actively in the mission of Jesus in his Church. The charity expressed in the collections that take place during the liturgical celebrations of the third Sunday of October is aimed at supporting the missionary work carried out in my name by the Pontifical Mission Societies, in order to meet the spiritual and material needs of peoples and Churches throughout the world, for the salvation of all.
May the Most Blessed Virgin Mary, Star of Evangelization and Comforter of the Afflicted, missionary disciple of her Son Jesus, continue to intercede for us and sustain us.
Rome, Saint John Lateran, 31 May 2020, Solemnity of Pentecost
Franciscus
