Our openness to others, our ability to listen, our welcoming of all that is good in every human heart, our rising above all discrimination (race, sex, social class, minority groups) are all obligations flowing from our missionary dedication.
Missionaries as servants of the local Church
We share the mission of Christ within the Church. We are the servants, not the masters of mission. Our role is to give public witness to the universality of the faith, the inter-communion of the Churches, their mutual interaction, their complementarity, the oneness of the Church amid the diversity of cultures and the shared responsibility for evangelisation.
In the local Churches, our primary task is to awaken an understanding of the universal mission, of justice and of kinship between peoples. We accompany their growth, providing specific services such as the Christian education of young people, the training of laity and catechists, the evangelisation of cultures and the transforming of society into the image of the Kingdom.
Basic ecclesial communities
"The involvement of lay people in evangelisation is changing the life of the Church; the basic ecclesial communities...are a sign of the vitality of the Church, an instrument of formation and evangelisation...and a source of new ministries" (Redemptoris Missio).
The missionary, a member of the Church
Our Rule of Life tells us that we should prefer to go to "those who have not yet heard the gospel message or who have scarcely heard it; to those oppressed and most disadvantaged, as a group or as individuals; where the Church has difficulty in finding workers".
But are we willing to go still further? That is to say, are we ready to open ourselves to what the Spirit has to say to us in the new challenges to mission today, such as inculturation, inter-religious dialogue, ecumenism, hunger in the world, injustice, the problems of youth, especially in the large cities, unemployment...and so many others?
