Rev Dr Patrick McInerney. Photo: Screenshot facebook.com/PlenaryCouncil/
Called by Christ: Sent Forth as Missionary Disciples
Assembly Two, Plenary Council
Rev Dr Patrick McInerney
5 July 2022
“The pilgrim Church is missionary by her very nature, since it is from the mission of the Son and the mission of the Holy Spirit that she draws her origin, in accordance with the decree of God the Father.” (AG, 2)
With these words, Vatican II’s Ad Gentes, revolutionized our understanding of mission. Throughout much of Christendom, mission had been seen as the Church’s task of spreading Christ’s message “to the ends of the earth”, to draw people into the Church (cf. Mt 28:18-20). Now it becomes the Church’s participation in the trinitarian mission of drawing all creation into the fulness of divine life (cf. DV, 2).
The eternal, intimate communion of life—the mutual exchange of knowledge and love between the three persons of the Trinity—overflows in missio Dei, God’s mission:
- The three divine persons are constantly creating, forming, animating, redeeming, healing, reconciling and uniting the world. They are active in the 13.7 billion year unfolding of the universe, its myriad galaxies, stars and planets; in the 3.5 billion years of evolution of life on planet earth; in fashioning human history, societies, cultures and religions.
- God’s mission became a personal, covenant relationship with Abraham and Sarah and their descendants.
- God’s mission came to an unsurpassable climax in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ and the sending of the Holy Spirit: “I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.” (Phil 3:8)
- Empowered by his Spirit, Jesus’ disciples continue his mission of ‘bringing good news to the poor, proclaiming release to captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, letting the oppressed go free, proclaiming the Lord’s favour’ (cf. Lk 4:18-19), anticipating here and now a final consummation beyond history when “God will be all in all” (1 Cor 15:28).
But in this new trinitarian paradigm, it is no longer “the church has a mission”, but rather, “mission has a church”:
- Caught up into and swept along by the mission of the Trinity, the Church too overflows, ever reaching outwards, pouring love, mercy and compassion on all (cf. EG, 20ff).
- By her sacramental affinity with the Trinity, she seeks the creative and redeeming presence and activity of the Word, the Spirit, and the Father in all cultures, religions, peoples and all creation (cf. DP, 16-17, LS, 238).
- Patterned on the Trinity’s activity, the pilgrim church is synodal, accompanying all peoples, especially the poor and “the marginalized stranded on the roadside” (FT, 71).
- Following the Trinity’s incarnational method, she seeks a Spirit-inspired embodiment in people’s cultures and lives.
- Modelled on the three persons of the Trinity, she promotes equality, mutuality, and universal fraternity/sorority between all peoples.
Drawn by the Father (cf. Jn 6:44), called by Christ (cf. Jn 15:16), and empowered by the Spirit (cf. Acts 1:8), we are all “missionary disciples” (EG, 24, 120ff). Baptised into the paschal dynamism, we are “filled with joy” (EG, 24), ecstatic (cf. FT, 88), ‘living no longer for ourselves but for him’ (cf. 2 Cor 5:15, Gal 2:20), whose ‘love urges us’ (cf. 2 Cor 5:14) to spend our lives working for peace, justice, and reconciliation.
In all our relationships, in all our activities, in our daily lives—at home or work or play—moved by the Spirit, each of us is called and sent to witness to the Father’s love made known in Christ.
Sisters and brothers, let us dream, then, with Pope Francis, “of a ‘missionary option’, that is, a missionary impulse capable of transforming everything, so that the Church’s customs, ways of doing things, times and schedules, language and structures can be suitably channelled for the evangelization of today’s world rather than for her self-preservation.” (EG, 27)
May our deliberations inspire and guide all the members of the Church in Australia to be joy-filled missionary disciples serving the Trinity’s mission of transforming history and the world.
Thank you.
