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Raymond
Finch, MM Introduction It is impossible to over emphasize the importance of mission as a source of life and vitality for the Church. The critical nature of mission is one thing that all Christians can agree on. Being sent, going out to others, going beyond ourselves and our borders, beyond our own interests and needs is at the heart of what it means to follow Christ and to be Church. The Second Vatican Council spoke of the Church as being, "missionary by its very nature" (Ad Gentes, n. 2). Carl Barth understood the very essence of Church to be found in "being sent and in building up itself for its mission" (Barth 1956: 725). Emile Brunner said it more succinctly when he explained that: "The Church exists by mission just as fire exists by burning". The scriptural warrants for mission continue to underpin the motivation for mission in this age and every other age: "Venerate the Lord, that is, Christ in your hearts. Should anyone ask you the reason for this hope of yours be ever ready to reply, but speak gently and respectfully" (1 Pt 3:15-16). "Full authority has been given to me both in heaven and on earth; go, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations. Baptize them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Teach them to carry out everything I have commanded you. And know that I am with you always, until the end of the world" (Mt 28:18-20). Mission in the life of the Church Mission is fundamental to the life of the Church and Proclamation is the "permanent priority of mission" (RM). The teaching of the Magisterium about mission and the central position of Proclamation in the wider context of mission, has been consistent and clear throughout the documents of the Second Vatican Council and right up to the Apostolic Exhortation, Ecclesia in Asia (1999). Pope Paul VI’s Apostolic Exhortation, Evangelii Nuntiandi (1975) states that "Evangelization will always contain, as the foundation, centre, and at the same time, the summit of its dynamism — a clear Proclamation that, in Jesus Christ Salvation is offered to all people, as a gift of God’s grace and mercy". Ecclesia in Asia, states that: "There can be no true Evangelization without the explicit Proclamation of Jesus as Lord" ( n.19). The importance and crucial nature of Proclamation and Catechesis are clear from the teaching of the Magisterium. At the same time there appears to be a hesitancy to give Proclamation the prominent place that it should occupy in the process of Evangelization. When I think of Mission and of Proclamation in particular, I tend to focus on the New Testament passages that send us forth; I think of the words of the Great Commission. It is not often that I associate Proclamation with giving reason for the hope that is in my heart. I concentrate on the imperative to go out, to announce, to state publicly, and to make the Gospel Message known to the ends of the earth. In all charity, as Christians, we go out to share something that we feel is ours: our faith, our understanding of God, and our relationship with Jesus. We go out to share our faith with those who apparently lack faith. Over the years we have given a lot of attention to the content of what we share, but we have paid less attention to the manner in which we have done our sharing. At times the manner of our Proclamation and Catechesis has contradicted the content. This has resulted in a distorted model of mission, one that is similar to the image of a rich person giving bread to a beggar. We go out and we share generously, but we share from our possessions, we share from a position of superiority. Given our reality and the context of our world as we begin this new millennium, a more appropriate image of mission might be that of one beggar sharing with other beggars where the bread can be found. In fact, we are as dependent on the bread as are those to whom we are sent. A point made by the late Missiologist from South Africa, David Bosch, in his well-known essay: "The Vulnerability of Mission". My personal experience I began my missionary experience among the Aymara People in the Highlands (Altiplano) of Southern Peru in 1973, just a few years after the Second Vatican Council, and the landmark meeting of the Conference of Latin American Bishops in Medellin, Colombia (1968). A few months earlier a large percentage of the participants at the last meeting sponsored by the Catholic Inter-American Cooperation Program (CICOP) called for a moratorium on sending more missioners to Latin America. It was a time when some very respected thinkers were questioning the validity of mission. The Second Vatican Council created a new openness to and respect for the other Christian Churches, as well as for other world religions. The Social Sciences associated the missionary movement with the colonial expansion from Western Europe. There was an awareness that the motivation for mission was at times more complexe than a simply altruistic religious one. It was a time of doubt and questioning. Despite all of the ambiguity and questioning of mission, and especially of mission to Latin America, I still felt called to leave home and become a missionary among the indigenous Aymara People in Peru. From the beginning, my experience has been marked by a number of important dynamics, which have very much coloured my understanding of mission in general and Proclamation in particular. I arrived in Peru at a moment when the missionary community was discovering the cultural and religious heritage and world-view of the Andean People. Previously their ancestral cultures were seen as lacking and deficient, not relevant to a 20th Century context. Aymara popular religiosity, which frequently mixed Christian and pre-Christian symbols in its rituals, was regarded as primitive, filled with superstitions, and even anti-Christian. Only after contemporary cultural anthropological studies began to challenge these views did a new awareness begin to take form. This enlightened assessment promoted a more sympathetic understanding of the so-called "primitive" cultures. Mission was no longer understood as bringing God into a void. Rather, the shift in perspective to one of discovery and mutual enrichment produced vast changes in the way mission was carried out. The first Bishop I worked with in the Juli Prelature, Maryknoller Albert Koenigsknecht, recognized this new missionary shift. He explained that when he first arrived in Peru he felt that he was bringing God to the people, as if he had God in his suitcase. He said that he had since discovered that God arrived a long time before him, and that together with the Aymara, he was being led to discern and discover God’s presence in different aspects of the Aymara reality. The missionary relationship was no longer a one way street, giving from what I possess from my faith and knowledge to those who do not have faith or knowledge. The dynamic changed to that of a common search, to which we both contributed. The missionary gives, but also receives. Mission, Proclamation and Catechesis, which were previously seen as a one way street, suddenly became a part of a reciprocal, mutually enriching process. How many times have we heard missioners say that they received more than they gave? That statement is not simply a courteous recognition of the worth or goodness of the people that we serve, it is a perceptive recognition of God’s presence as it unfolds in the human mystery among the people that we serve. It is a statement of a profound and living Faith. From my very first moment in Latin America it was obvious to me that I stuck out; I was different from everyone else. In fact, I enjoyed a position of power. As a priest, I had received an education. Being born in the United States I had economic resources and security far beyond those of the average Peruvian and far removed from the richest Aymara. Coming from a working class background in Brooklyn, New York, this was a new experience for me. The social prestige and power, which came with my position, helped to attract the attention of the people and even to get them to listen for awhile. At the same time, they turned around to do exactly as they pleased. They acted as they had in the centuries since the periods of Spanish conquest and colonization with a passive aggression that evaded my direct questions and resulted in a silent rejection of new possibilities. My position of power actually distanced me from the people that I was determined to serve. That, which seemed from one perspective to be an advantage, became a hindrance and a handicap. In this context, I asked myself if it would be possible to establish the trusting human relationships so essential for the authentic Proclamation of the Gospel. I discovered that the only way that I could begin to relate on some type of equal footing with the people I hoped to serve, was to put myself in their territory; in the situations where they understood, where they had expertise, and where they were in control. The temptation was to limit contact to those situations where I was in control such as the parish, the town, or the local political reality based on power relations. The only way that mission and Proclamation of the Gospel could take place was by searching for situations where I became vulnerable, situations where I was not in charge or in control. The alternative seemed to be to settle for an artificial relationship of well-intentioned paternalism. My experience among the Aymara led me to question if it is ever possible authentically to Proclaim the Gospel from any position of power, be that social, political, or economic power. I am almost afraid to answer my question because I fear the response. I read of the temptation in the desert where Satan offers Jesus "all this power and all this wealth" and I realize that it is not easy to say "no". There is so much good that could be done. Our Mission has changed Mission has changed dramatically during the past 40 years since the Second Vatican Council. It has changed significantly in the 30 years since I began to work among the Aymara People in Peru. No longer is it simply a movement from the "first" or "developed" world to the "third" or " underdeveloped" world. Nor is it simply a movement from the so-called "Christian" to the "non-Christian" countries. It is a call to go beyond the boundaries of our Church and culture, and at times, even beyond the borders of our country. It is a call to participate in God’s Mission, to participate in bringing about God’s Reign. As Church, people can never look inward. "Church exists by Mission just as fire exists by burning". Today, we recognize that there are mission situations in the United States and Europe, as well as in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Every Christian is called to mission. Another important difference during the second half of the 20th century is the self-questioning which has resulted in a notable and welcome decline in the arrogance, self-confidence and naïveté that frequently marked both Catholic and other Christian missionary efforts during the 19th and early 20th centuries. We have learned that good will is not enough. Even the best intentioned of the efforts of many missionaries have resulted in real harm to many of our brothers and sisters with whom we share life in our Global Village. We have discovered that the scientific, economic, political, social, religious and ecclesiological answers that we insistently offered to our "less developed" sisters and brothers were as riddled with contradictions and problems as the realities that they were intended to improve. Painfully we have become aware that much of what we proclaimed as Gospel was a very limited cultural understanding of that Gospel message. We discovered that we did not stand in a neutral place and impartially share the Gospel. We realized that our very words and actions often fostered and proclaimed Western values of efficiency, thrift and progress rather than God’s love for the people and their inherent goodness. The process of self-questioning that we have endured has been both difficult and distressing, but it has brought us to a new moment of truth. We have learned that Proclamation is more than simply winning others to our brand of religion, and we have discovered that we do not have all of the answers. In fact, our problem-solving approach, coming up with sure-fire answers before we entered into dialogue, actually got in the way of God’s loving presence. Pope John Paul II’s missionary Encyclical Redemptoris Missio (1990) gives us a clear statement of what Mission should be about today. It points to the importance of the five aspects of Mission: Proclamation and Catechesis, Dialogue, Witness, Human Development, Prayer and Liturgy. My intuition is that we are comfortable with all of the aspects of Mission that are pointed out in Redemptoris Missio, except for Proclamation and Catechesis. Mission: Dialogue and Proclamation Dialogue is seen as an integral part of Evangelization. In our postmodern Western World there is a cultural predisposition to both the need for and the importance of Dialogue. The need for Witness is clear and it is easy to see the importance of Witness in a cultural context where "actions speak louder than words". Human Liberation and Development have been a concern of the Church throughout the centuries, although with different emphases and a sense of urgency that has varied. Today, in our world of contrasts and striking disparities and contradictions where the "rich get richer and the poor get poorer" this aspect of Evangelization is recognized as critical to the missionary task. Proclamation and Catechesis on the other hand, are seen as if they were to constitute imposing our beliefs on others. There is a fear of imposing our beliefs: about God, about Catholic Doctrine, as well as our beliefs about personal and social morality. There is discomfort with promoting a role and function for religion that is in the public forum; a role that is not accepted in our pluralistic society as it is shaped by postmodern attitudes and thought patterns. If you choose to believe fine, but keep it to yourself runs the prevailing argument today. There is a suspicion that insistence on Proclamation will result in the same overconfidence and arrogance that provoked the self-questioning of the missionary project during the last 40 years. Yet, what are Evangelization and Mission about, if they are not about sharing our faith convictions and values, in short, if they are not about Proclamation and Catechesis? Mission is fundamental to the life of the Church and Proclamation is the "permanent priority of mission" (cf RM, n.1). The objective of Proclamation and Catechesis is clearly stated in the Second Vatican Council: "That non-Christians be fully converted to the Lord under the action of the Holy Spirit who opens their hearts so that they may adhere to him (Ad Gentes, n.13)". Again, this is not simply winning others over to my brand of religion, but it is sharing with others the reason for our hope, entering into the Paschal Mystery and accompanying others as they embrace and reveal the new faces of Christ’s life, death and Resurrection. It is one beggar sharing with other beggars the Bread that we all need and long for. We have a tendency to see the five aspects of mission pointed to in Redemptoris Missio as distinct and even as antagonistic or contradictory. There is a tendency to order these aspects of Mission from the most important to the least important, from the first to the last in temporal sequence, or to place the different elements of Mission in opposition one to another. We speak of Proclamation vs. Dialogue, or Proclamation vs. Witness. In Redemptoris Missio the Holy Father insists on the complexity and the interconnected nature of all five aspects of mission.
Different elements of Mission I would like to recommend that we look at the relationship that exists among the different elements of Mission or Evangelization in a new way. Instead of examining which of the elements is first or second, or positioning one element as more important than another, I would like to suggest that we consider each of the elements as part of a whole which cannot be separated or considered separately. Because of our limited capacity, we need to examine each aspect of Mission separately, giving our attention to Proclamation at one moment and to Witness or Dialogue at another moment. Yet we must never lose sight of the organic whole that is Evangelization, which, like a person, is much more than the sum of its parts. I would suggest that the presence of all five aspects of Mission is always necessary for authentic Evangelization. When we forget this organic unity we distort Evangelization and we place its authenticity at risk. It is not the case that some missionaries are called to witness while others are called to proclaim. Nor is it acceptable that at one moment Mission be characterized only as Proclamation or Dialogue, and later only as Liturgy or Human Liberation. Rather, authentic Proclamation is always rooted in a living Witness; it is carried out in a spirit of Dialogue; it leads to Human Liberation and it is in fact, conducive to contemplative and prayerful action. When we isolate any one of the aspects of Evangelization from the others, even if this separation is temporary and motivated by a desire to deepen our understanding, we chance confusing authentic Evangelization with something that does not quite hit the mark. Having said that, and trying to hold the reality of the interconnectedness of all of the aspects of Mission in our awareness, we can examine the different dimensions of Proclamation a bit closer. When we speak of Proclamation as one aspect of Evangelization, I feel that the most appropriate quote from the New Testament to guide us is the one that we began with from the First Letter of Peter, "Venerate the Lord, that is, Christ in your hearts. Should anyone ask you the reason for this hope of yours be ever ready to reply, but speak gently and respectfully" (1 Pt 3:15-16). The reason for our hope, the substance of our Proclamation and Catechesis, is our faith experience of God’s saving action in our lives and in the world. It is the Good News about the coming of God’s Reign, about the Cross, about the Paschal Mystery and about Jesus, the Risen One. It is the Good News about the assembly of believers, the Church, living out the Paschal Mystery at the service of God’s Reign. It is the Good News about our collective experience of responding to the Mystery of Salvation in our midst over the past two thousand years. The substance of our Proclamation and Catechesis is both personal and social. We announce and proclaim that which we have begun to live as individuals and as a community, that which we hope to see brought to fulfilment in the fullness of time. The substance of our Proclamation and Catechesis exists both as orthodoxy and orthopraxis: "Preach always. When necessary use words". We recognize the importance of paying attention to the substance of our message, but that is not enough. The manner in which we make that message known is as important as the message itself. "To speak gently and respecfully" What does it mean today to speak gently and respectfully? Let us return to the observation, which I made earlier about the two images of mission. First, the image of the rich man giving bread away to poor beggars and the alternate image of a beggar sharing with other beggars. Theologically we have been clear that as Church, as the assembly of believers, we are to be about God’s Mission, not our own. We have to be clear that it is God who saves the world, not us. At best we are merely instruments of God’s grace at work in the world. Unfortunately, there have been too many times when we have allied ourselves with the powerful of this world and acted more like the sole proprietors of God’s Reign, than as servants of the Gospel. Authentic Proclamation is always marked by attitudes of humility and service. There is no room or reason for any show of self-importance or arrogance on our part. How can we ensure that our Proclamation is marked by an attitude of humility and service in our world today? Let us revisit the question of the relationship between power and authentic Evangelization that I raised earlier. It is not enough that the Cross and the Paschal Mystery be placed at the heart of our verbal Proclamation; they must also inform the manner of our Proclamation. I would like to suggest that authentic Proclamation is only possible when we, as individuals and as a Church, act from positions of vulnerability and weakness. All missionaries experience vulnerability and weakness. We experience it as we confront dehumanizing poverty and situations of injustice and oppression. We experience it as we begin yet again in a new country or enter a new culture or learn a new language. The experience of vulnerability and weakness on an individual level is an intrinsic part of mission. All too frequently we have tried to escape this reality in the name of efficiency or expediency. It is uncomfortable, to say the least, to feel weak and vulnerable. At the same time, we realize that an authentic Proclamation of the Gospel and the Paschal Mystery will always be rooted in deeply experienced vulnerability and weakness, and in the rejection of false power and security. As a Church we are called to be a blessing to society, but not necessarily to participate in the power structure of that society. The Church has flourished in situations where it has undergone suffering and thus fulfilled its mission of Proclamation from a position of weakness. We recall the foundations of the Church built on the sacrifice of the martyrs. More recently we have the examples of the Church in China and Vietnam. Our tendency and temptation is to move away from weakness and vulnerability toward power. That movement jeopardizes both the credibility and authenticity of our Proclamation. The Gospels agree that Jesus launched his Proclamation of the Reign of God from Galilee, from a small provincial backwater area, from the periphery and margins of the society of his time. Not only did Jesus initiate the Proclamation of the Kingdom from the periphery, but also he addressed his Proclamation to the poor, the marginated and the outcasts. Yes, Jesus ultimately arrived in Jerusalem reaching out to all segments of society, including the wealthy. He used the cultural and social infrastructure and the means of communication that were available. Significantly, he never allowed his Proclamation to be subverted by the structures of power, or to be distorted by the interests of the dominant political or religious groups of his time. Inevitably, we must use the infrastructure and the means of communication available at particular moments in history. We are expected to take advantage of the opportunities that a particular system provides, whether that is the Roman or Spanish Empire, or the all-pervasive structures and networks of todays globalized world economy. Jesus did so during his time as did the Apostles during theirs. Paul was an expert on using the system to his advantage. It is critical that we insure that the Message we Proclaim never becomes subservient to the interests of those who dominate the political, economic or social infrastructures of our time. The natural movement of the Gospel is from the periphery to the centre, from Galilee to Jerusalem and then to Rome. Are we able to heed the voices from the periphery today? Do we hear the cry of the poor and abandoned here at home: those without work, the homeless, and the illegal immigrants? Do we hear the voices of those who live on the margins of our globalized economy in Africa, Latin America and Asia: the street children, refugees, victims of AIDS, Indigenous groups, and other forgotten groups around the world today? Another aspect of speaking "gently and respectfully" as pointed out in the 1984 Document from the Secretariat for Non-Christians, is that authentic Proclamation will always be dialogical. And I quote: "Before all else, dialogue is a manner of acting, an attitude; a spirit which guides one’s conduct. It implies concern, respect and hospitality toward the other. It leaves room for the other person’s identity, modes of expression and values. Dialogue is thus the norm and necessary manner of every form of Christian mission as well as every aspect of it whether one speaks of simple presence and witness, service or direct proclamation" (Reflections and Orientations on Dialogue and Mission, n. 836). I would like to recall the observation that I mentioned earlier of Bishop Al Koenigsknecht about Proclamation being a two-way street. We give and we receive. We share our experience of God, and our faith, both as individuals and as Church; at the same time, we discover God present in the diverse realities, social situations and experiences of those to whom we are sent. Conversion and transformation are clearly the goals of our Proclamation and our Catechesis, but not simply the conversion of those to whom we are sent. Through mission, in particular through Proclamation, God brings about our conversion and transformation, as well as the conversion and transformation of those to whom we are sent. Authentic Proclamation brings about the conversion of everyone involved. Authentic Proclamation begins with the "Other" As a dialogical process, authentic Proclamation begins with the "other". It begins with reaching out to and being present to the "other", who is different from me and who I cannot and must not attempt to recreate in my own image. Our experience, our expectations and our goals do not determine the starting point of this dialogue by themselves. Rather, the starting point is in the encounter itself, which is in fact an encounter with the sacredness of life. This is not simply a matter of a missionary strategy or a tactical manoeuvre. It is a theological imperative that flows out of our model of mission. We do not "bring" God to the missionary encounter, we witness to and proclaim our faith that God is already present, bringing about the Salvation of all peoples and cultures, and of every nation. The missionary task is to discern and discover God’s presence and absence in this encounter; to discover and make known the new faces of the Paschal Mystery that are constantly being revealed. Mission is the very life of the Church; "The Church exists by mission just as a flame exists by burning". It is in our self-giving, in our loving, in our reaching out to others with the message that today’s world so desperately needs, that the Church comes into existence and points the way to God’s Reign. This is what mission is about; this is what we must be about. This is what we hope to proclaim and teach. We have been given a very precious treasure, our faith, the reason for our hope. Yes it exists in very fragile earthen vessels. Even so, we are called to share it with all of our sisters and brothers at home and around the world. Proclamation is the permanent priority of mission. But, if that Proclamation is to be authentic, it must always be thoroughly intertwined with witness, human liberation, dialogue and prayer. It must be authentic both in content and in style, marked by humility, vulnerability and a total rejection of false power and security. It must be a living out of as well as a verbal Proclamation of the Gospel. It is only, when we have learned to proclaim and explain, gently and respectfully, the reason for the hope in our heart, that we will be prepared to make disciples of all nations. Preach always! When necessary use words. Ref.: Text from the author.
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