PROGRAMME LAVIGERIE File no 2
NOTHING BUT MISSION
“Be apostles, be nothing but apostles, or at least, be nothing else except with this in view” (Cardinal Lavigerie).
The Constitutions are very clear: ‘Our congregation is exclusively missionary’ (no 1). This is part of who we are: mission is the raison d’être of our Congregation and the essential element of our charism (CA 2005, p. 44). This desire to be apostles – ‘nothing but’ – constantly urges us to allow ourselves to be converted anew in our way of living the mission wherever we are (CA 1987, p. 23). On several occasions, Lavigerie stressed that missionaries must be, in the first place, initiators.
Our life experience
* What does it mean for you to be ‘exclusively missionary’?
* In the context in which you live today, do you still see the need for an exclusively missionary congregation? Give reasons.
* Do you believe that this call to be ‘exclusively missionary’ can still be proposed today? Why? Why not?
Our founding experience
At the outset, the aim of the mission was to go out and build a local Church with a local clergy and local congregations, and set up institutions.
“Why should there be missions if not in order to establish and found God’s Church in these huge areas? And how will the Church be constituted, if not with the same elements as those that have constituted it at other times, namely: faithful, clergy and male and female religious from all nations?” (1926)
We put ourselves at the service of the local Churches…
“Be completely available and unselfish…. Since the mission is responsible for all teaching, our priority must be the opening of more primary schools. The teaching of home economics is beginning and it develops rapidly… Craft Enterprises and Care Centres are being opened…” - “Let us work at deep level and not superficially… Everywhere there is a surge of education and home economics learning… students flood in. Improve your methods but, first and foremost, remain close to the Gospel…” (1945-46)
Then came the times for readjustment…
“The period of tension and difficulty prompts an amazing resurgence of courage among our sisters, courage drawn from Cardinal Lavigerie’s exhortation: ‘They must make themselves all things to all people and no draw back before any difficulty…’ As one sister said, ‘It was in difficult moments, when I saw how other foreign non-missionary Congregations called their presence into question so quickly, that I realised the strength of our past experience which had rooted us in the Mission more firmly than we thought.’ ” (1965)
And the time for passing on
our missionary spirit to the local Church…
“The insecurity we experience in a particularly strong way in Africa… is sometimes marked by an anxiety which can develop from ‘Can we still remain in Africa?’ to ‘Ought we to still remain in Africa?’. Would not our ultimate missionary witnessing be to leave? To that, the local Church replies, ‘We need you in order to give the local Church its true face, a face of Pentecost and of universality.’ ” (1970)
“And we welcome among us young African women, as courageous as the young Europeans of former times…”
Quotations drawn from l’Histoire des Origines (How our Congregation began)
A whole history of apostolic zeal and continuous discernment… How are we to remain faithful to this exclusively missionary inheritance today?
A changing context
Until Vatican II, the whole thrust of mission aimed at ‘saving souls’ and ‘implanting the Church’. The movement was from the West to the ‘foreign territories’ – for us, Africa.
Vatican II produced three documents, which gave a broader meaning to mission:
- Ad Gentes shows the Trinity as the foundation of mission; the action of the Spirit is seen as more comprehensive.
- Nostra Aetate points out the value of non-Christian religions as means towards God, and the respect they are due.
- Gaudium et Spes on the Church in the world, has many aspects which are important for mission - the dignity of the person, the renewal of humanity, respect for culture, integral development, etc.
After Vatican II, we have a key document from Paul VI, Evangelii Nuntiandi. This document proposes a theology of the Kingdom of God. The Church is at the service of the Good News of the Kingdom. We start speaking of “mission to the six continents”. Local Churches are becoming much more aware that they are the first ones responsible for the mission and that each person is called through his/her baptism to be missionary.
Missionaries following Jesus
“To other towns also I must proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom of God. For this I have been sent to do” (Luke 4:43).
Jesus is a model missionary. He no sooner gathers a few believers together than they want to keep him for themselves. Jesus, however, has many more people in mind still awaiting the Gospel: “To other towns I must proclaim…”- “Woe to me if I do not proclaim the Gospel” (I Co 9:16).
And Jesus moves on, proclaiming in words and deeds the Kingdom of God. Jesus never asked anybody to change religion; he called to conversion, convinced that the God of the Kingdom is characterised by gratuitous mercy for all.
What is amazing is the inclusiveness of Jesus’ mission: he reaches out beyond the boundaries set up by his contemporaries and offers God’s compassion to the poor, the outcast and the sinners, and even to occasional Gentiles. The Good News is for all! Women are included in this missionary thrust: “Come and see“ – “Could he be the Messiah?“ (Jn 4:29). After the resurrection, it is Mary of Magdala who goes and tells the disciples, “I have seen the Lord.“
Jesus of Nazareth did not inaugurate a full-blown universal mission: the nature of the Church’s universal mission became clear only gradually, even painfully, and only through the power of the Spirit. But it was ultimately the experience of who Jesus was that pushed his disciples to become witnesses ‘to the ends of the earth’.
“They went forth, preaching everywhere, and the Lord worked with them and confirmed the Word through accompanying signs” (Mk 16:20).
How does the Church redefine
the role of exclusively missionary Congregations?
As the Church is, by its very nature, missionary, each local Church being co-responsible with other Churches for mission, there is a need to clarify the role of exclusively missionary Congregations.
Redemptoris Missio (1990) reminds us that the Holy Spirit, the principal agent of mission, makes the whole Church missionary. This mission is one and undivided, having one origin and one purpose; but within it, there are different tasks and kinds of activity. “To say that the whole Church is missionary does not exclude, but actually requires, that there be persons who have a specific vocation to be 'life-long missionaries ad gentes” (n° 32).
Looking at today’s world, we can distinguish three missionary situations. First, there are peoples, groups, and sociocultural contexts in which Christ and his Gospel are not known, or which lack Christian communities sufficiently mature to be able to incarnate the faith in their own environment and proclaim it to others. Secondly, there are Christian communities with adequate and solid ecclesial structures… fervent in their faith and in Christian living. In these communities, the Church carries out her activity and pastoral care. Thirdly, there is an intermediate situation, where entire groups of the baptized have lost a living sense of the faith, or even no longer consider themselves members of the Church, and live a life far removed from Christ and his Gospel. In this case, what is needed is a “new evangelization” (n° 33).
And Redemptoris Missio says (n° 34), “Missionary activity proper, namely the mission ad gentes, is directed to peoples or groups who do not yet believe in Christ, or who are far from Christ, or in whom the Church has not yet taken root and whose culture has not yet been influenced by the Gospel. It can be characterized as the work of proclaiming Christ and his Gospel, building up the local Church and promoting the values of the Kingdom.”
This missionary activity has normally been defined geographically. But because of the rapid and profound transformations which characterise today’s world, the paths of mission open up new horizons:
- urbanisation and the importance of cities, where new customs and styles of living arise together with new forms of culture and communication, which then influence the wider population;
- new social phenomena: young people, migrants and refugees, situations of extreme poverty;
- cultural sectors like mass media, justice and peace, reconciliation, human rights, the advancement of women and children, etc.
- interreligious dialogue as a part of the Church’s evangelising mission.
Exclusively missionary, Congregations are both relevant and necessary, because they provide the Church with a clear and forceful model of missionary commitment. The continuing relevance of these Congregations, however, will depend on their ability to read the signs of the times and to undertake new and bold endeavours at the frontiers of the Church’s mission.
To accompany your reflection, we recommend that you reread sections 31 to 40 of Redemptoris Missio.
As a Congregation today
how can we be exclusively missionary?
Our demographic reality as a Congregation has deeply changed: three quarters of the sisters are now living in Euramerica. There is a gap in the middle group, and most of the young women who join us today are from Africa. Moreover our call to be initiators is becoming less clear. Twenty years ago, the Congregation chose LIFE, because we believed “that the Lord is still sending us to proclaim the Good News to the African peoples”. At each General Chapter since then, the Congregation has been concerned to keep this specificity for mission alive.
a) There is an insistent call to witness to the universal dimension of our faith, keeping alive a burning desire to go out towards people in order to encounter them where they are.
b) We are continually reminded that we are exclusively missionary until death, everywhere and in whatever we are doing. We are becoming more aware of the necessary interdependence between the different generations and we confirm that our mission is one.
c) We are convinced that our charism for mission does not belong to us, and we welcome those called either as Msola or as lay missionaries (CA 2005).
d) We are called to collaborate with the local Churches, a collaboration which is not always easy and demands mutual listening, honest discernment of needs, as well as clarity about our specific contribution.
e) There is an invitation to discern how to be universal and inter-cultural in our minds and hearts. Availability to be sent to encounter other cultures and peoples is an essential characteristic of our spirituality, and this also has an important impact on the interculturality of our communities (See Salome programme).
Proposals
* Let us read again, especially
CA 1987, p. 21-23
CA 1993 p. 13-45
CA 2005 p. 44-50,
in order to rediscover this dimension of our charism to be exclusively missionaries.
* Let us take the time and means to share concretely how each one is living the “exclusively missionary”, here and now, and what further steps we could take.
* Let us encourage each other to read and study the leaflet with the accompanying article.
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