MESSAGE OF THE HOLY FATHER, PAUL VI
FOR WORLD MISSION DAY 1966

Venerable Brothers and Beloved Sons.

The still vivid memory of the unanimous participation in our heartfelt prayer for peace, which we addressed to God on 4 October with unlimited trust through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin of the Rosary, gives us encouragement to address you once again for a cause intimately connected with that of peace: the proclamation of the Gospel, that is, of God’s love and paternity, to all creatures.

The Missionary Church Under the Guidance of the Mother of God

The imminent World Mission Day offers us the opportunity. It is, as usual, an invitation to prayer, study and contribution to the needs of the Catholic Missions; invitation that receives even greater meaning and effectiveness from today’s feast of the Motherhood of Mary Most Holy, to whom we filially entrust our word.

One cannot remain indifferent to the extent, to the problems, to the difficulties of the Missionary Church in the world, and to all those, priests, religious and lay people, an immense phalanx on the front lines of the apostolate, who dedicate themselves with true daily heroism to spreading the Good News, and to the spiritual as well as material, civil and social elevation of their brothers and sisters of another language and of another civilization.

Their example must spur the entire Catholic family to become ever more aware of their duty of missionary collaboration. The Ecumenical Council effectively highlighted this: in fact, every child of the Church – it said – is a missionary by baptismal vocation, nor could he shirk this duty without failing to fulfill the demands of his supernatural life; moreover, no one in the Church is so small and poor as not to be able to bring, according to their own condition, their contribution to the building of the Kingdom of God on earth.

For this reason, this year too We wished to draw your attention to the coming Day, and to address to all of you, dearly beloved Brothers and Sons, Our customary appeal. It starts from Our heart, which is weighed down by the responsibilities for the impressive dimensions of the missionary problem, and which finds comfort, as well as in knowing You share Our anxieties, in the promises of the Divine Word of Christ, which says: “Trust in God and also in Me” (John 14, 1) . . . “Behold, I am with you always, to the end of the world” ( Matt . 28, 20).

Aware therefore of our poor possibilities, but strengthened by trust in God and the presence of Christ in his Church, we wish first of all to gather Christianity in one unanimous, supportive and simultaneous prayer for the advent of the Kingdom of God.

Anxiety, Worries, Difficulties

Never before has Mission Day presented Our souls with such a spectacle of anxiety, worry, difficulty, but it also gives us reasons for hope and joy.

On the one hand, the universal salvific will of God, “who wants all men to be saved and to come to the possession of the truth” (1 Tim 2 , 4) through Jesus Christ, makes us understand the full gravity of the problem, which the dogmatic Constitution ” Lumen Gentium ” recalled in the following words: “The Council, relying on Sacred Scripture and Tradition, teaches that this pilgrim Church is necessary for salvation” (art. 14). And yet, the number of those who have no knowledge of God’s paternal love and of Christ’s redemptive work is ever greater, even if the hope of salvation remains for them “in the sincere search for God” (Dogmatic Constitution “Lumen Gentium» art. 16). They too were created to achieve “intimate union with God” from this earth ( ibid . art. 1).

Another reason for sadness for Our paternal heart is the growing divisions, the hatreds, the contrasts which separate people from people, as a result of harmful racial doctrines, nationalism, segregationism, which feed incessant rancor.

 

Serene Perspectives of Light and Charity

Then there is the ever more serious urgency – if we really want the whole human race to soon constitute the one people of God – to bring men and peoples together, directing to the common good what each one has produced that is good, noble, just, wise on the natural level, in the formation of their respective cultures. The Catholic Church not only wishes to know these cultures in order to respect them, but also to enrich them with the supernatural values ​​of grace, inserting herself into them, living their same characteristics, spreading the example of the Apostle Paul who made himself “indebted to the Greeks, to the barbarians, to the wise and the ignorant” (Rom. 1, 14 ) .

On the other hand, Mission Day also offers us more serene prospects of light and charity; they make us certain of the definitive victory of God’s love, which wants to manifest itself to men through the charity of brothers.

If we look closely, the program for the Day is nothing but a summary of the very “mission” of the Church: to make visible through fraternal charity the invisible Love of the Father who is in Heaven.

So here is that the Day is transformed into an immense and simultaneous presentation of God’s infinite love to the whole world, reminding the “children of God” who are in his house of the duty of collaboration with the Father for the salvation of the brothers who are outside it (Constit. de S. Liturgia, art. 2 ) .

Here is the confirmation of a mysterious, providential and merciful order of God who freely wanted to make use of men for the work of saving the world. Here is the spectacle of material charity, which throughout the world, through dioceses, parishes, organizations, various initiatives, unites Christians in daily sacrifice, in apostolic labours, in the merits of the Missionaries.

Thus the dutiful aid to the material hunger of peoples, which We Ourselves have already recommended so much, shines with a nobler light in the construction of churches, schools, and training centres, as a contribution to the hunger for truth, love and education which afflicts them.

 

Multiform Activity of Offering and Apostolate

Understood in this way, World Mission Sunday is the continuation of the missionary spirit of the first Christians who, united “of one heart and one soul” ( Acts 4, 32) around the Apostles, enlivened the pagan world with faith and charity.

May it therefore truly be the day of prayer, light and charity; may numerous missionary, religious and lay vocations ignite in it, for a complete self-giving to the Kingdom of God. We invoke the Lord’s blessing paternally in the first place and with particular affection on the local clergy of the particular Churches, on the Missionaries and men and women and on new vocations, the living hope of the Church; we invoke it upon you, Venerable Brothers, gathered in the national episcopal conferences; on your clergy and on your faithful and on all the missionary aid activities which they wish to foster.

We are certain that Our appeal will find a fervent echo in the hearts of those who listen to Us. We cannot, we repeat, remain indifferent to the problems of the missionary Church; one cannot sleep soundly, knowing that many souls will remain far from God only because the missionaries lack those material aids, which a very slight sacrifice of ours would be enough to procure; one cannot enjoy the admirable progress of economic and social life, knowing that thousands of suffering, lepers, undernourished, hungry people, among whom innocent children predominate, are condemned to death for lacking the most elementary resources, which, however, abound for others.

 

Listening to the Voice of the Redeemer

The Council called all men of good will to missionary cooperation: fathers, mothers, young people, children, it committed them all to this duty, which comes from being Christians, and on which they will one day be judged. Our voice today repeats that cry to you: do not remain insensitive! Offer your prayers, your help, your interest, demonstrating the vitality of your faith.

It is the very voice of Christ that reminds us that what will be done for the least of our brothers and sisters is done to him. And, in repeating it, Our voice of his humble Vicar on earth trembles with emotion at the thought of such grave needs, but also rejoices in the response it will find in so many good and generous hearts.

The Lord himself will reward you; it will be the Holy Virgin, Mother of the Church and Queen of the Missions, who will impetrate for you every desired gift of grace. May it comfort and validate Our Apostolic Blessing, which we impart to all with great heart, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

PAUL VI

 

Credit: Liberia Editrice Vaticana, publisher of the official documents of the Holy See