Question 9.141

9.141 Francis insists, moreover, on the necessary “missionary transformation of the Church”. This challenge was the focus of your work at the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, was it not?

The pope thinks that the Church must make an effort to set out for the missions beyond her traditional frontiers, so as to concentrate one part of her work on places and persons that she might tend to neglect. In the Old Testament, Abraham, Moses, and Jeremiah set out on journeys at God’s command. The apostles themselves never ceased to be astonished at the roads that Christ followed. Thus the Holy Father can write: “Evangelization takes place in obedience to the missionary mandate of Jesus: ‘Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you’ (Mt 28:19-

20). In these verses we see how the risen Christ sent his followers to preach the Gospel in every time and place, so that faith in him might spread to every corner of the earth” (EG 19).

The incentive to go out of oneself in order to evangelize is a short summary of what it means to be Christian. We cannot help radiating our joy in speaking about God to people who do not know him. The Church is in the first place a community of missionary disciples. The peripheries about which the pope speaks call us to make a commitment with regard to Christ and his sacrifice on the Cross. I adopt as my own these forceful words: “God’s word is unpredictable in its power. The Gospel speaks of a seed which, once sown, grows by itself, even as the farmer sleeps (Mk 4:26-29). The Church has to accept this unruly freedom of the word, which accomplishes what it wills in ways that surpass our calculations and ways of thinking. The Church’s closeness to Jesus is part of a common journey; ‘communion and mission are profoundly interconnected’”, Francis reminds us (EG 22-23).

The missionary transformation of the Church is not a human way but, rather, a call by the Holy Spirit who lights our paths like a burning torch that shines in the darkness of this world.

It was a privilege for me to work for nine years in the service of evangelization, and I was able to observe with joy the fine, rapid growth of the young Churches of the mission countries in Africa and Asia as well as in Oceania.