Day FOUR: Passion for Mission

+ In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Text from the Cardinal:

“Be apostles, nothing but apostles.”

My dear children, you are not ordinary travellers, you are not explorers, and yet you seem to copy in all your ways of doing and thinking what people like Stanley are about (…). You are apostles, you are only that; or, at least, the rest must come only in addition. I exhort you, resurrect in you these great thoughts of the apostolate. (…) I love you dearly, my dear children, but I would prefer to learn of your death than to see you miss the spirit of your vocation and become some type of African ‘Robinson Crusoe’, as I have told you sometimes. Lift up your hearts! This is the cry I send you through space to awaken your souls (I.121-122). The virtue proper to a Missionary is zeal. Zeal is the perfection of charity (I 52-53).

Reflection:

Since his youth, Cardinal Lavigerie’s ideal had been to be an apostle, to be a missionary, to put all his energy at the service of the proclamation of the Good News, to preach Jesus Christ by word and example. As apostles, we must first be men of God, he said forcefully. (I.138).

The nineteenth century saw in the Church the birth of a large number of apostolic and Missionary Societies. It was also the time of the great discoveries of the interior of this mysterious continent by Europeans, who attracted explorers as well as colonisers and adventurers of all kinds. Lavigerie sensed that there might be a temptation for his young Missionaries to become exhilarated by the taste for adventure and risk.

Through our Baptism, we are all called to witness the Good News that has enticed us. This call is not just for Missionaries. Around us, there are also so many people in search of meaning and value in a world where the person is so often devalued, and the spiritual life drowned by consumerism. There are many other forms of dependencies and frailties from which the witness of our attachment to Christ can bring freedom. Wherever we are, our family, our work environment.

Intention:

We pray for a renewed passion and zeal for mission, without counting the cost of discipleship. May we be animated by the same fire that characterised Lavigerie and his first Missionaries.