FOURTH CONVERSATION:
THE EVANGELIZATION AND MISSION TO WHICH WE ARE CALLED
The missionary commitment has acquired a special importance in view of the situation that we are in.
1. Basis of mission commitment: love for the neighbor
-The command to love is the axis of life in the Spirit in its entirety (John 13:35).
-Love for God shows itself especially in the relationship of communion and life with Him (John 15:15-20).
-Jesus indicates that the measure of true love is the willingness to give one’s life for one’s brothers and sisters (John 15:13).
-In our case, the life that we are called to give to others is life in the Spirit.
Until each of the members of our communities feels impelled to be a missionary and to share the gift of the Spirit with everyone, the community is lacking in love and is not completely fulfilling the will of the Lord.
2. Internal organization to ensure growth.
-To be able to give missionary witness, it is first necessary to have an intense personal experience.
-I believe that in many cases in our communities there is a lack of deepening in spirituality.
Many times there is an abundance of external manifestations and even marvelous signs, but still there is lacking a more personal and deep spirituality.
The spiritual manifests itself especially in three features:
-A personal experience of being constantly in communication with the love of God. That means to experience his presence; to listen and know how to converse with him (Romans 6:16-39).
-A personal awareness of having received certain gifts. So long as each of the members of our communities is not discovering that he or she has specific gifts, the full life of the Spirit is still not manifest. It is urgent that in our communities the flourishing of abundance of gifts of diverse sorts be encouraged. This can be achieved through prayer.
-A feeling of the irresistible necessity to give witness of the new life that has been received (2 Corinthians 5:14-20). Here is where the mission aspect is found.
3. The organization of mission teams in every community
Taking as the point of departure that each member of the community ought to learn to discover his personal gifts and that therein a missionary urge is born, evangelism and mission teams should be encouraged to come forward in each of the communities.
Mission teams should make special efforts in three types of activity:
-Visit the members of the community whose zeal has cooled off or who have fallen.
Visit neighbors, acquaintances and other persons that do not belong to the community, no matter what religion they may belong to or if they are not practicing any religion.
-Direct attention to new places where communities do not yet exist with the goal of encouraging the start of one.
-Missionary activity is not proselytizing. That means that its goal is not to correct others, believing that one is right and the others are wrong, and that because they are wrong they have to be join our communities.
-We are convinced that the Lord has done great marvels in us:
-that he has come into our lives and transformed us
-that he has given us freedom, which is fulfilled when we remain active in sacramental life
-that he has chosen us to be witnesses of the new life, of the advent of the Kingdom, to everyone.
-Therefore, our missionary action has to be oriented to giving testimony of that new life of love and freedom that we live, witnessing to the importance that sacramental life has, and sharing the conviction that we have that the Lord wants to involve everyone in that joy.
-That witness can be visiting people, families, institutions, etc., and talking about some biblical passage during which we can also witness to our life and experience.
- It is a matter of encouraging everyone to have that joyous experience that we have. They can have it by belonging to and committing themselves to the community to which they belong or by joining our communities.
-For our part, what is important is that the missionary activity be:
- organized, which means that if follows a methodical plan
- systematic, which means that it is done regularly
- broad, and tries continually to become broader
- effective and at the same time respectful.
4. Means of communication.
- Among the most effective resources for mission action are the media. Radio has special importance.
- Access to radio can be through broadcasting programs on commercial radio or establishing community radio stations in our communities.
- Recently at least three communities that are part of the communion have established their own radio stations. In all cases an admirable growth in the communities can be seen.
- It would be marvelous if the communion as a whole could have one or two frequencies with a national reach in order to broadcast the witness to our experience and mission to all people.
- I beg you to ask the Lord to give us the means to realize the dream of a communion radio at the national level and meanwhile I encourage you to continue broadcasting programs through the existing stations and, when conditions permit, to establish new community stations that carry the gospel message to everyone.
5. Ecumenical dialogue and the mode of unity that we are creating.
- We feel ourselves called to encourage unity among all Christians.
- The One who builds unity is the Holy Spirit. Therefore, we ought to feel in communion with all people, and especially with all Christians who are living by the same Spirit.
- Nevertheless, we feel that the Lord has given us a great and beautiful richness: First, he has given us catholic faith with its sacraments. Second, he has given us freedom, which permits us to launch initiatives, as well as to feel the joy and the experience of the presence of the Holy Spirit.
- Often people who are not in alliance with the Communion have only one of these two gifts of the Lord.
- Therefore we have to feel motivated to give witness to the richness of our faith to all. We cannot think that the Lord is only calling those who are “rejected” or who suffer an illness and hope to be made healthy. The call to attain the abundance of life, of freedom, of joy and sacramentality that we enjoy goes out to everyone. Therefore without proselytizing and without trying to make people part of our communities, we must give witness so that wherever they live their faith they may find richness and abundance, freedom and joy, which the Lord has given us.
- I believe that we have to pray and work to hasten the day when many churches that do not see themselves as catholic may, while keeping their spiritual identity and organizational autonomy, accept sacramentality, especially the Eucharist, and can be in alliance with us. When the moment comes when that happens, it will fall on us to take the presence of the Eucharist to those churches, to install ministers of the communion whom they elect, and to help them prepare to receive the other sacraments. In every other respect, we are to respect their form of work, organization, prayer and praise.
6. The Communion’s Missions at the national and international level
- It is also important that through prayer and the contacts that we can have with persons and communities in other countries we may continue encouraging them to ally themselves with the Communion.
- If at the beginning our mission is directed only to those who are completely rejected, it is because at the present we have to be aware that the Lord is sending us to those who are weary and weighed down, to all who do not live the full life of freedom of the children of God, to all who are not fully recognized and respected, although they may not be completely rejected and are tolerated.
- On the basis of this awareness, we know we have to intensify our missionary commitment in all possible dimensions and directions. |