A Reflection on the Year of the Parish as Communion of Communities (Part 4)

“Mission of Communion” and “Communion for Mission”: Fundamental Conversions Required

After presenting a proposal on how to promote communion, let us respond to the challenge of the Church to make communion our mission and to live in communion for the mission. In Pope Francis’ words, we are called to become missionary disciples.

What are the requirements then to become missionary disciples? As members of the parish, what conversions do we need to undergo?

Pope Francis reminds us that in all its activities the parish encourages and trains its members to be evangelizers… We must admit, though, that the call to review and renew our parishes has not yet sufficed to bring them nearer to people, to make them environments of living communion and participation, and to make them completely mission-oriented. (Evangelii Gaudium 28)

In order to build up the “communion for mission” and the “mission for communion”, every member’s unique charism needs to be acknowledged, developed and effectively realized.” (Ecclesia in Asia 25) As proposed above, our charisms can be a gateway for us to realize community. Blending the variety of persons, contributions and capacities like harmony in music is so commendable.

But we should not be proud so as to say, we already have become a harmonious community. Being in communion with one another loses its meaning without going out to the periphery. It is only in reaching out to others that community life becomes meaningful. We need not stop and become myopic in our self-referential attitudes but go beyond the confines of our comfort zones. We need to serve the world. For PCP II 103-104, “the Church is a communion in a state of mission… The community of disciples does not exist only for itself or its members. It exists for the world.”

What attitudes should the missionary disciple develop? (Cf. Fr. Antonio Pernia, Davao Clergy Retreat, November 16-20, 2015)

From activism to contemplation

Fr. Antonio Pernia, SVD, during the Davao Clergy Retreat on November 2015 shared these points of reflection on the required conversions in mission today.

The first conversion is from activism to contemplation. Very often we are very “Pelagian” in our way of doing mission. We act as if mission depends more on our efforts than on God’s grace. And so we frequently fall into the danger of “activism” – that is, the danger of thinking that the best way to do mission is to become effective in what we do. And so we work and work and work, and give our attention almost exclusively to the effectivity of what we do, and no longer have the time to also pay attention to the quality of our lives and the credibility of our personal witness.

Thus, the very first challenge in mission is to seek out, discern and strengthen the presence of Christ and the action of the Spirit in the world. But it will be impossible to discern if we do not approach mission in contemplation. For to contemplate is precisely to look, to listen, to learn, to discern, to respond, to collaborate.

Thus, one expectation of missionaries today is the development of a contemplative spirit in mission. We need to abandon the idea that contemplation is the opposite of mission. We need, rather, to promote the idea that contemplation is a constitutive dimension of mission.

From superiority to humility

According to Fr. Pernia, the second requirement for conversion in doing mission today is from superiority to humility.

Seeing mission as Missio Dei makes us realize that the Christian gospel is not the possession of any one people of a particular culture, but that it is meant for all peoples and cultures, and for all times and generations. The missionary is never the “owner” or “master” of the gospel, but only its “steward” and “servant”. Today, then, the missionary is called to preach the gospel not as if he or she owned it, dictating thereby the terms by which it must be understood, lived and celebrated. The approach of the missionary today must be to share the faith as a gift received from God through others, conscious of himself or herself as merely its steward or servant and never its owner or master.

This entails that today the missionary is called to evangelize from a position of powerlessness, lowliness and humility. He or she will not seek power – economic, cultural, technological, or even media power. The only power he or she will need is the power of the Word and of the Spirit. And that power is the power of love, which is manifested in self-giving. The ultimate reason for humility in mission is that mission is God’s and not ours.

“I prefer a Church which is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a Church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security.” (Evangelii Gaudium 49).