Every Christian Is a Missionary

Father Nicolas Schwizer

How many beautiful plans and brilliant projects have failed throughout history due to a lack of men, women, and shoulders! God needs men and women for the evangelization and transformation of the world. God needs convinced, committed instruments who are ready to give their all. Many Biblical texts speak to us of those whom God chose. The Jewish community is for God “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” Among all the people on earth, it is the chosen and preferred people to fulfill His plans.

Gifts are tasks. Jesus summons his apostles and gives them their first mission. They must announce the Great News of the coming of the Kingdom, and they must do this not only through words, but also with signs and concrete actions. When God chooses, it is to give a mission: gifts are tasks; therefore, God sends the apostles and entrusts them with a task. Like the twelve, the entire Church is an apostolic and missionary Church. The Church does not live for itself. It is to be a light for the world; it is for serving all of humanity and for saving all peoples.

We are also all sent: every Christian is a missionary. That immense treasure which we have received – the light of Christ and his Gospel – is for communicating it to all men and women. As the Lord tells us, every Christian should become “salt of the earth,” “the light of the world,” and “the yeast of the dough.”

Let us not withdraw. Indeed, God did not create the Church to be a type of “select club” of privileged souls who are permitted access to certain reserved gifts. NO. From the beginning, God has loved all of mankind and has desired that all come to his Father Heart. For that reason, He created the Church at the service of all mankind, as instrument and messenger of the Good News of his love.

Without a doubt, we Christians are God’s favorites because we have been able to hear his Gospel first.

But, our privilege is of serving: to take to all men and women those gifts for which they are destined: so that the Gospel becomes the light of the world; and that it may penetrate not only human hearts, but also the life of society and its culture.

Thus the Gospel should ferment the whole world for Christ. It should conquer and heal with its light all that is darkness and sin in the world. Slowly, it should construct that great communion of love which God desires for all humanity: so that all men and women come to be his children and brothers and sisters in Christ.

At our baptism we receive a light. Therefore, the Church is not an island, a family closed within itself to enjoy the love which unites its members. We belong to her to take her light to all men and women, to brighten the way to Christ for everyone. We Christians cannot remain cloistered within our communities or movements. These should not only be our home and place of formation, but also our place for sending forth. These should be the place from which we embark toward all men and women, to illuminate with the light of the Gospel all problems…..the joys and hopes of their families…..of their neighborhoods, schools, factories or offices.

“No one enkindles a light – says the Gospel – to hide it under a basket, but to place it on the candlestick so that it may light up the entire house.” On the day of our baptism, we all received a light – symbol of the mission of the Church – which from that moment on became a personal mission for each one.

Questions for reflection

What have we done with that baptismal light?

1. Have we let it extinguish itself?

2. Have we kept it hidden in our private life?

3. Or have we raised it on the candlestick of our mission so that it may illuminate everyone?