\u201cYou will be my witnesses.\u201d \u2013 Read Acts of the Apostles 1: 6\u20138<\/p>\n
\u201cMissionary\u201d and \u201capostle\u201d are terms that come from Latin and Greek, respectively, and they mean \u201csent\u201d and \u201cenvoy\u201d. We think that these words evoke far distant lands and poor people and are the concern of missionaries or other people that go or stay somewhere else\u2014but do not concern us. Mission, instead, is the task of each one of us.<\/p>\n
We always ask ourselves \u201cwhen\u201d the kingdom of God will come. Jesus only tells us \u201chow\u201d it comes. The Apostles, before Jesus\u2019 Ascension, questioned Him for the last time: \u201cLord, has the time come? Are you going to restore the kingdom of Israel?\u201d From Jesus\u2019 answer, the Christian community is born: \u201cIt is not for you to know times and dates that the Father has decided by His own authority, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and then you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem… and indeed to the ends of the earth.\u201d<\/p>\n
Birth refers to nature: the plant follows the nature of the seed from which it comes. By the power of the Holy spirit, the nature of the Church consists in being witness to her Lord. The kingdom comes when, \u201cbaptized in the Holy Spirit\u201d (Acts 1: 5; Luke 3: 16), the disciples keep on doing and teaching everything He Himself \u201chad done and taught from the beginning\u201d (Acts 1: 1). To be His witnesses (martyrs, in Greek!) means to remember Him, to take Him to heart, acting and speaking as He did.<\/p>\n
Each one of us has the same vocation and mission of Jesus: the vocation to be sons and daughters, which is fulfilled in the mission of becoming brothers and sisters. Every believer is a recipient of Jesus\u2019 mission, the Son who loves him like the Father.<\/p>\n
According to the measure of experiencing His love, he becomes active: he is able to love as he is loved and makes himself His wit- ness on behalf of others so that they may have the same experience. This is what Jesus told the man who was freed from the legion of demons: \u201cGo back home and report all that God has done for you\u201d (Luke 8: 39).<\/p>\n
The one who was once possessed is now the first apostle: he is sent to give testimony to the brethren of what has happened to him.<\/p>\n
Mission, first of all, concerns myself, my lifestyle. The love of the Son frees me from evil; once free, I am sent by Him: \u201cAs the Father sent me, so I am sending you\u201d (John 20: 21). I am sent first to those who are near: \u201cGo back home.\u201d The apostles\u2019 witness starts from Jerusalem; mine starts from where I am.<\/p>\n
I take charge for the society in which I am living, in order to embrace all in the end, until the extreme corners of the earth. In our multicultural and global world, the farthest away are usually the nearest whom we neglect: those whom we push to the margin, beyond the limits of a viable life. Uprooted from their own environment and discarded by us, they are the poorest of all.<\/p>\n
Our vocation and mission would have to be re-visited in the light of the Lord \u201cwho is always with us\u201d (Mt 28: 20) with the face of all the faceless people who live among us. Hungry, thirsty, immigrants and the naked, sick and those in prison, the millions of poor Christs of this world: they are the Lord. What we do to the least of them will judge and save us, not them. They are sent to our door like Lazarus; they are calling us to bridge the abysmal gap that we have dug between them and us so that, from them, salvation may reach us. Mission is the fundamental dimension of our life.<\/p>\n
We always need to be evangelized, and by the very ones we would like to evangelize. Then, once evangelized, we turn towards the others, near and far. Only going to the brethren, we ourselves become children of God. Mission implements our vocation: \u201cAnyone who welcomes you welcomes me,\u201d says Jesus identifying Himself with His envoys (Mt 10: 40). The mission towards our brethren makes us like Him, the Son.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cYou will be my witnesses.\u201d \u2013 Read Acts of the Apostles 1: 6\u20138 \u201cMissionary\u201d and \u201capostle\u201d are terms that come from Latin and Greek, respectively, and they mean \u201csent\u201d and \u201cenvoy\u201d. We think that these words evoke far distant lands and poor people and are the concern of missionaries or other people that go or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/combonimissionaries.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/combonimissionaries.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/combonimissionaries.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/combonimissionaries.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/combonimissionaries.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9100"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/combonimissionaries.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9100\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/combonimissionaries.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/combonimissionaries.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/combonimissionaries.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}