MESSAGE OF THE HOLY FATHER PAUL VI
FOR WORLD MISSION DAY 1967

Brothers and Sons all of the whole world!

World Mission Day is back again this year; is scheduled for Sunday 22 October. We want Our voice to be the loudest to proclaim it because our apostolic ministry obliges Us more than anyone else to evangelize the world; this is exactly what Missionary Day is about.

Generous Initiatives with Great Awareness and with Great Fervour

We announce it to you first, Our Brothers in the episcopal office; to whom above all and by divine mandate incumbent with Us the duty, never exhausted, to spread the Christian message of salvation in the world. To you, priests, to you, men and women religious, to you, all the faithful of the Church of God, to whom the obligation is likewise enjoined and the honor offered, by virtue of your belonging as living members to the Mystical Body of Christ, to cooperate positively and personally in the spread of the Kingdom of God on earth. And to you, men and women Missionaries, we proclaim it, because this Day is for you, for you, skilled workers of the Gospel, dedicated to its first expansion among peoples who are not yet Christian, who need to feel behind you the solidarity of the whole Church,

We want Mission Day to be celebrated everywhere: in all dioceses, in all parishes, in all religious families, in all Catholic associations, and also in all the nascent Christian communities of the mission territories. And we would like it to be celebrated, with great conscience and with great fervour.

What the Missions are, what they require of us, c: why, is now known. The missionary idea has penetrated the Christian people; the fate of the Missions is now a fact of universal interest; and the theological and practical doctrine on the Missions has been widely and authoritatively illustrated by the Decree of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council on the missionary activity of the Church, which everyone today knows the nature and importance of the missionary question; but precisely because of this primary and universal aspect of the question itself it is never in vain to dwell on it; indeed it is never allowed to distract him from it. That is why we celebrate this day every year.

Two considerations will suffice for this year, one on the conviction of the need for the missionary apostolate; the other on generosity, from which missionary activity must be nourished.

God’s Design on the Fate of Humanity

We will therefore first say that the missionary apostolate derives from a great ideal charge; it is nothing but the manifestation of an idea-force, that is of one of those thoughts which constitute the essence, the principle, the intrinsic requirement of the Christian conception of life, of history and of the world; and this idea-force is the discovery of God’s plan for the fate of humanity. Re-reading the aforementioned conciliar decree on missionary activity, see how many times this fundamental concept of God’s plan recurs. The missionary idea interprets the idea of ​​God. It is therefore a divine idea, a mysterious and immense idea, a stupendous and loving idea, a necessary and urgent idea. It is an idea of ​​faith for faith. “The reason for this missionary activity comes from the will of God”, says the Council ( Ad gentes, n. 7), who «wants all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is only one God, and only one mediator between God and men, the man Jesus Christ, who gave himself as a ransom for all, and exists in no other salvation. It is therefore necessary that all convert to him, after knowing him through the preaching of the Church, and to him and to the Church, his Body, be incorporated through baptism”.

A chain of needs (of different natures, but competing for the same purpose) sustains missionary activity. God, the Being, the Life, is necessary. Christ the Savior is needed. The Church, the ark of salvation, is necessary. Baptism, the sacrament of rebirth, is necessary. Faith, to access the sacrament and Christ, is necessary. To arrive at the faith the missionary is necessary.

And this set of necessities governs the destinies of men. It traces the divine thought about their salvation. It does not restrict the breadth of divine mercy, which can spread in so many different and mysterious ways and arrive, well beyond the historical and constituted level of Christianity, to save those who “reside in the shadow of death”, which is outside the light of the Gospel. It does not restrict God’s heart, but determines his will for us: “Without faith it is impossible to please God” ( Heb . 11, 6). Therefore it is the right and duty of the Church, however much faith she has in Christ, however much love she bears him, to spread the Gospel of salvation, “so that missionary activity retains in full, today as always, its validity and its necessity” (Ad gentes, ibid. ) .

This is good to remember in order to strengthen in us the persuasion about the excellence and about the urgency of missionary activity. We must not think that by now the missionary idea has lost something of its importance due to the various and new difficulties it encounters. Isn’t the true and proper task of the Missions now completed, when has the announcement of the Gospel reached the ends of the earth? And isn’t it more difficult today than yesterday to carry out a religious preaching in nations that are no longer primitive, and which, becoming aware of themselves, are jealous of their own culture? Isn’t it then perhaps to be believed that God has to save even those who in good faith profess a religious cult other than the Catholic one? Lastly, the dialogue that the Church wants to establish today with all forms of civilization,

Faith in Christ: the only and Necessary Plan of Salvation

They are real and strong difficulties. But they cannot and must not weaken the missionary ardor, because the plan of salvation conceived by God is always the unique and necessary plan of faith in Christ; and because the vast majority of humanity is still deprived of the regenerating and savior announcement of the Gospel. These difficulties should stimulate rather than weaken missionary zeal. Appropriate solutions to these problems will have to be studied; methods and forms for a modern evangelization will have to be modified; the missionary effort will have to be intensified where it still finds open ways today, nor give up overcoming obstacles where the ways are blocked. But we must continue.

Let us therefore say, in the second place, that today missionary activity calls for new generosity. The Missions live on the generosity of the Church; on the contrary, they are an expression of the potential for generosity that she possesses. Generosity: we mean charity. It has pleased God’s wisdom and goodness to save men in Christ our Redeemer only, but not without a ministry of men. God’s love, to reach everyone, needs the love of men who consecrate themselves to the health of their brothers and sisters. This is the design of Christianity; it finds its specific manifestation in the hierarchical apostolate, and its typical expression in the missionary apostolate which derives from it. The Holy Spirit, Charity of the Father and of the Son, blows into this system of salvation; raises apostles, instills inspiration, generates heroes, falls in love with sacrifice, he strengthens those who entrust themselves to his vocation, repays with intimate consolation those on missionary paths who feel weak, feel alone, feel misunderstood, feel hated. Such is the genesis of the Church, such is its history. So even today, and today more than ever, the Church wants to live: on the urgency of charity. «Caritas enim Christi urget nos ” ( 2 Cor . 5, 14).

For the Missions we Reach out your Hand

Therefore, Brothers and Sons of this weary and most beloved Catholic Church of ours, we must celebrate Missionary Day thinking of this precise character and this interior need of the missionary fact: it takes place on the trajectory of Christ’s charity, prolongs it, spreads it; it is a gift, a great gift, a free gift, a crazy gift (like that of the Crucified); it is sacrifice; it is as we said, generosity. We need to think like this about the Missions. Let us not remain indifferent, not inert, not strangers, not selfish; but let’s be generous. Generosity has two ways of expressing itself: it makes self-oblation: here are missionary vocations; it makes an offering of its riches: here is the collection of offerings for the missionary cause: «Everyone gives as he has intended in his heart, not reluctantly, nor by force,2 Cor . 9, 7). And remembering these words of the Apostle Paul, the missionary Apostle par excellence, do not be surprised if We too, for the Missions, extend our hand to you. We could give you a long discourse on the needs of the Missions, especially on the needs of our Pontifical Mission Societies, which are responsible for the “care of all the Churches” ( 2 Cor . 11, 28) in the phase of evangelization. But you know these needs; as We know your heart.

And with this certainty of your love for Christ, for the Church, for the Missions, invoking all good things upon you, wishes Mary Most Holy, Queen of the Apostles, with a fraternal and paternal heart we bless you all.

PAUL VI

 

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