Vatican City (AsiaNews) – “Missionaries of Hope among All Peoples” is the theme Pope Francis chose for his message on World Mission Day 2025, which the Church will celebrate on Sunday, 19 October.
The statement – which the Vatican Press Office released the today but is dated 25 January, feast day of the Conversion of Saint Paul – focuses on the theme that is the common thread of the Jubilee 2025. The pope invites us to place ourselves “In the footsteps of Christ our hope.”
“Through his disciples, sent to all peoples and mystically accompanied by him, the Lord Jesus continues his ministry of hope for humanity. He still bends over all those who are poor, afflicted, despairing and oppressed, and ‘pours upon their wounds the balm of consolation and the wine of hope’.” For this reason, “Christians are called to hand on the Good News by sharing the concrete life situations of those whom they meet, and thus to be bearers and builders of hope.”
Addressing “those of you who are missionaries ad gentes,” Francis notes that “Following the Lord’s call, you have gone forth to other nations to make known the love of God in Christ. For this, I thank you most heartily! Your lives are a clear response to the command of the risen Christ, who sent his disciples to evangelize all peoples”.
“In this way, you are signs of the universal vocation of the baptized to become, by the power of the Spirit and daily effort, missionaries among all peoples and witnesses to the great hope given us by the Lord Jesus.”
Along with the most geographically remote peripheries, the pope also includes as the horizon of this mission the world’s “most ‘developed areas’,” which “shows serious symptoms of human crisis: a widespread sense of bewilderment, loneliness and indifference to the needs of the elderly, and a reluctance to make an effort to assist our neighbours in need.
“In the most technologically advanced nations, ‘proximity’ is disappearing: we are all interconnected, but not related. Obsession with efficiency and an attachment to material things and ambitions are making us self-centred and incapable of altruism. The Gospel, experienced in the life of a community, can restore us to a whole, healthy, redeemed humanity.”
Today, therefore, it is necessary to renew “the mission of hope”. And the first step to undertake is “to discover how to become ‘artisans’ of hope and restorers of an often distracted and unhappy humanity.” Hence, Francis invites us to be rooted in the mystery of Easter, drawing the power of the Holy Spirit from the celebration of the sacraments.
The pontiff goes on to say that the “missionaries of hope are men and women of prayer," like Vietnamese Cardinal Phanxicô (Francis) Xaviê Nguyễn Văn Thuận, who wrote that, "the person who hopes is a person who prays”.
Bearing witness to these words with his life, the pontiff writes, he “sustained in hope throughout his lengthy imprisonment thanks to the strength he received from faithful prayer and the Eucharist.”
For Francis, “The Psalms train us to hope amid adversity, to discern the signs of hope around us, and to have the constant ‘missionary’ desire that God be praised by all peoples.” At the same time, “evangelization is always a communitarian process, like Christian hope itself.”
Finally, the pontiff writes, “Here I would emphasize once more the importance of this missionary synodality of the Church, as well as the service rendered by the Pontifical Mission Societies in promoting the missionary responsibility of the baptized and supporting new Particular Churches.
“I urge all of you, children, young people, adults and the elderly, to participate actively in the common evangelizing mission of the Church by your witness of life and prayer, by your sacrifices and by your generosity.”
