Mission is not for a few! It is for all. The Church is mission. Without mission, the Church would not be; it would not exist. From its very beginning, the Church received its identity as missionary from the Lord Himself, whose mandate she must fulfill:

All the authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, make disciples of all the nations; baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teach them to observe all the commands I gave you. And know that I am with you always; yes, to the end of the time. (Mt. 18:1820)

A sense of humor…

A sense of responsibility…

A sense of opportunity…

A sense of mission!

It is not simply about knowledge.

It is about identity and inner drive to act upon.

It requires knowledge and, most of all,

conviction and passion!

A need for a clearer concept of mission, church and priestly identity!

Evangelization:Evangelization:

Clear proclamation of Christ renewing and strengthening the Church

Human promotion:Human promotion:

Need of building a unified community with no one excluded. Evangelization:Evangelization:

Clear proclamation of Christ to today's’ gentiles

Building Christian communities

Human promotion:Human promotion:

Situations of modern poverty, exclusion, ….

Prophecy in action

To be sent:To be sent: Clear identity and Clear purpose

"Missions" is the term usually given to those particular undertakings by which the heralds of the Gospel, sent out by the Church and going forth into the whole world, carry out the task of preaching the Gospel and planting the Church among peoples or groups who do not yet believe in Christ.” (AG nº6)

The Church: refers to liturgical assembly, local community and/ or the whole universal community of believers. These three meanings are inseparable.

The Church is the people that God gathers in the whole world.

1. God created the world for the sake of communion with His divine life.

Old Covenant / the call and promise to Abraham.

Israel’s election as the People of God / Sign of the future gathering of all the nations.

The prophetic proclamation of a new and eternal covenant.

OLD TESTAMENT:

A journey from “The God of Israel” to the “only God”, the “Universal God”!

What kind of relationship of this God with other peoples?

“The universal God” – Book of Jonah – the missionary book.God of love and mercy, who would rather forgive and save even the enemies of His people, than punish and destroy them.

«Your people will return to you from everywhere – from Assyria in the east, from Egypt in the south, from the region of the Euphrates River, from distant seas and far-off-mountains.» Micah 7,12

God’s vision of His Church and its mission: Isaiah 55-66 – Jerusalem as the center that attracts all peoples.

«…My Temple will be called a house of prayer for the people of all nations…The Sovereign Lord, who has brought His people Israel home from exile, has promised that He will bring still other people to join them! Is 56.7-8

It is more the image of a missionary God than of a missionary Israel. A God with universal heart

The newness of Jesus: his attitudes and teachings:

• He does not have an exclusivist mentality. He excludes no one!

• He finds models of Faith among the pagans, foreigners (Jairus, an official of the local synagogue (Mk 5,21-43); the Roman officer in Capernaum (Mt 8, 5-13); the Gentile woman (Mk 7,24-

30); the Samaritan (John 4, 1-43); the Canaanite woman (Mt 15, 21-28).)

Central is the theme of the

“Kingdom of God”:• Not a future eschatological reality.• It is present! The Kingdom is already among you! Jesus

preaches it and sends his Apostles to preach it.– The first “targets” of this preaching are the “excluded”,

the “marginalized”.– The proclamation of the fatherhood of God has never a

restrictive dimension. He is Father of all and the Salvation of God is for all through Jesus.

From Jesus’ mission to the mission of the first Christian communities:

«As the Father sent me so I «As the Father sent me so I send you.”send you.”

The experience of the risen Lord brings the disciples to understand Jesus and His mission.

«I have been given all authority in heaven and on «I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Go then, to all peoples everywhere and make earth. Go then, to all peoples everywhere and make them my disciples: baptize them in the name of the them my disciples: baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and Holy Spirit, and teach them to Father, the Son, and Holy Spirit, and teach them to obey everything I have commanded you. And I will be obey everything I have commanded you. And I will be with you always, to the end of the age.” (Mt 28, 18-20)with you always, to the end of the age.” (Mt 28, 18-20)

From Jesus’ mission to the mission

of the first Christian communities:The power of Pentecost impels them to be committed and faithful

to that same mission.

«While Peter was still speaking, the Holy Spirit came down on all those who were listening to his message. The Jewish believers who had come from Joppa with Peter were amazed that God had poured out his gift of the Holy Spirit on the Gentiles also.» Act 10, 44-45

«While Peter was still speaking, the Holy Spirit came down on all those who were listening to his message. The Jewish believers who had come from Joppa with Peter were amazed that God had poured out his gift of the Holy Spirit on the Gentiles also.» Act 10, 44-45«Then God has given to the Gentiles also the opportunity to repent and live!» Act 11, 18

«For this is the commandment that the Lord has given us: ‘I have made you a light for the Gentiles, so that all the world may be saved.’” Act 13, 47

The Church:

1. People of God [One]– “He called together a race made up of Jews and Gentiles which would be one, not according to the flesh, but in the spirit. A people with a mission, to be salt of the earth and light of the world.” (ccc 181)

2. Body of Christ [Holy]– unity and communion in the diversity of members and functions.

3. The Temple of the Holy Spirit [Catholic and Apostolic] – the true protagonist of the mission.

“Having been divinely sent to the nations that she might be ‘the universal sacrament of salvation’, the Church, in obedience to the command of her founder and because it is demanded by her own essential universality, strives to preach the Gospel to all men.(…) It is from God’s love for all men that the Church in every age receives both the obligation and the vigor of her missionary dynamism, “for the love of Christ urges us on.” (CCC 849-8551)

The priesthood of the New Testament, which appeared first in the apostles, presupposes a true communion with the mission of Jesus Christ. The person who becomes a priest is grafted into His mission. (Cardinal Ratzinger, 1990)

"The Eucharist and the priesthood are due sacraments born together, whose fate is permanently tied together until the end of the world."  (JP II)

The priest, through the sacrament received, becomes partner in mission with the missionary of the Father, Jesus himself.

“The Eucharist is the source and summit of all evangelization.” (PO, 5)

We must be able to say with Paul: “What is life? To me it is Christ!” (Phil. 1:21)

Mission is to be Jesus: Mission of incarnation

- Mission of solidarity with all peoples

- Mission of self-giving (Kenosis)

Very often the role of a priest is described as a life of service, but only on a horizontal dimension. A priest is one who first serves Christ as the steward of His priestly mission. Pope John Paul II, Holy Thursday message, 1979, #4

The universal mission of priests "to the ends of the earth" (Acts 1:8) has been enthusiastically renewed by the Second Vatican Council and the Magisterium of the Church. In the Decree on Missionary Activity Ad Gentes, the Conciliar Fathers exhorted priests to be "profoundly aware of the fact that their very life is consecrated to the service of the missions."It is above all a missionary spirit that gives life to this priestly service in the various situations of the world today and, in particular, among those people and in those socio-cultural contexts in which Christ and His Gospel are still unknown. Jozef Cardinal Tomko

The Asian Context:

Over 50% of the world’s population lives in Asia

Less than 2% are Catholics (of them 50% in the Phil.)

Asia is the birth place of the 5 major religions in the world (Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Judaism and Christianity).

A rich variety of deeply-rooted cultures in Asia

Multi-Religious / Pluri-Cultural / Prevalent Poverty

“The Church lives and fulfills her mission in the actual circumstances of time and place. A critical awareness of the diverse and complex realities of Asia is essential if the People of God in the continent are to respond to God's will for them in the new evangelization.” (EA no. 5)

The Church’s answer:

In 1622, establishment of the Congregation for the Propagation of Faith, by Pope Gregory XV

“The Church on earth is by its very nature missionary since, according to the plan of the Father, it has its origin in the mission of the Son and the Holy Spirit”. (AG 2) - 1965

1975, Apostolic Exhortation EN by Paul VI

1990, the RM affirms the permanent validity of the Church’s missionary mandate.

1998, from Propaganda Fide comes – “Cooperatio Missionalis”.

Ecclesia in Asia (POST-SYNODALAPOSTOLIC EXHORTATION, JP II):

Asian Synod in Rome (April 1998)

“This is a time of grace when the Church in Asia is called to a fresh Missionary outreach.”

“Ours is the task of writing new chapters of Christian witness in every part of the world in Asia: from India to Indonesia, from Japan to Lebanon, from Korea to Kazakhstan, from Vietnam to the Philippines, from Siberia to China.”

Ecclesia in Asia:

“What distinguishes the Church from other religious communities is her faith in Jesus Christ, and she cannot keep this precious light under the bushel.” (EA, n0. 10: RM no. 11)

Jesus was born in Asia and the Scriptures were written in Asia. Now it is our task to “bring Jesus back to Asia”.

The local Church is the center and source of evangelization. But, since Christ’s mission is universal, all local Churches are called to live in communion with each other!

Mission has always been a slow commitment because it has always been easier to believe in the Mission than to live it out!

Mission has power in itself because it does not belong to us.

Mission is ever more actual and alive than ever for the challenges are greater than ever but also the new areopagi. From maintenance to mission! (Bishop Arturo Bastes once said:

“the Church in Asia is only in a maintenance mode, not in a missionary mode.”

Urgent need of missionary spirituality – “a fire can only be lit by something that is itself on fire.”

A sowing Church more than a reaping one – more a poor church than the church of the poor – the power of witnessing!

1. The same Lord, the same call, the same spirit, the same mission!

2. It is Jesus’ mission, not ours. HUMILITY! We are not protagonists but instruments!

3. It has to be done in “Jesus’ way”, without softening it!

4. The need to learn again from Jesus. Go back to the roots!

5. Our responsibility to put flesh into the mission of Jesus in the contemporary realities of Asia.

6. Avoid being a nostalgic Church. Foster hope!

7. Focus explicitly on the proclamation of Jesus! Not only on morals. «What we have seen and heard we announce to you!» (1Jn1,3)

8. A Church that neglects its ad intra communion, cannot fulfill its ad extra Mission. “At the threshold of the Third Millennium it is clear that the Church's ability to evangelize requires that she strives earnestly to serve the cause of unity in all its dimensions. Communion and mission go hand in hand.” (EA no. 24)

A clear identity, rooted purpose, clear vision, urge for action moved by faith.

Local yet universal

One yet diverse

Empowered and guided by the Spirit for the evangelization of all peoples.

Priesthood is a sacrament. It is a call for a clear purpose. It is a way of being in the likeness of Jesus.

“My brother priests, this missionary Church, this Eucharistic people, depends upon you for the authentic proclamation of the Good News.” JP II address in Cebu, 1981

O Holy Mary, Daughter of the Most High God,Virgin Mother of the Savior and Mother of us all,look tenderly upon the Church of your Sonplanted on Asian soil.Be her guide and modelas she continues your Son's missionof love and service in Asia.You fully and freely accepted the Father's callto be the Mother of God;teach us to empty our heartsof all that is not of God,that we too may be filledwith the Holy Spirit from on high.You pondered the mysteries of God's willin the silence of your heart;help us on our journeyto discern the signs of God's powerful hand.You went quickly to visit Elizabethand help in her days of waiting;

Obtain for us the same spirit of zeal and servicein our evangelizing task.You sang the praises of the Lord;lead us in joyful proclamation of faithin Christ our Savior.You had compassion on the needyand spoke to your Son on their behalf;teach us never to fearto speak of the world to Jesusand of Jesus to the world.You stood at the foot of the Crossas your Son breathed His last;be with us as we seek to be onein spirit and service with all who suffer.You prayed with the disciples in the Upper Room;help us to wait upon the Spiritand to go wherever He leads us.Protect the Church from all the powersthat threaten her.

Help her to be a true imageof the Most Holy Trinity.Pray that through the Church's love and serviceall the peoples of Asia may cometo know your SonJesus Christ, the only Savior of the world,and so taste the joy of life in all its fullness.O Mary, Mother of the New Creationand Mother of Asia,pray for us, your children, now and always! Amen.

MARAMING SALAMAT PO!Fr. Dave Domingues, MCCJ