Mission – a matter of love
A good question
I was fortunate enough, during my life as a Comboni Missionary, to spend eleven years serving in the Philippines. I remember one day there that a committed young layman fired this question at me: “Father David, you Combonis often speak with enthusiasm about your vocation and your Founder, St Daniel Comboni. You share about his dreams, his drive, his journeys, his hopes and disappointments, his heritage and memory – and that is all very beautiful and inspiring. But now what I would like to know is this: what is the heart, the centre, the engine of St Daniel’s mission, and of your mission today?”
A very good question indeed, and one which during my almost fifty years now as a missionary I have often tried to answer, searching for the right words, and even more for the right deeds. If my young friend were to ask me the same question today I would not hesitate to enlist the help of not one, but two Popes: Francis and Leo. In fact, it is really striking that Pope Francis’ last major letter entitled Dilexit Nos was about love – “the human and divine love of the Heart of Jesus Christ”, and Pope Leo’s first letter to the whole Church Dilexi Te is about… love – “love for the poor”. It is clear then: as Pope Francis says, “mission becomes a matter of love”, and missionaries are people who are “in love and who, enthralled by Christ, feel bound to share this love that has changed their lives”.
Mission as love: yes, this is the stupendous and splendid reality that forms a bridge holding the Popes’ two letters together, and that also gives us the key to begin reading, praying and living Dilexi te – as we hope to do over the coming year. And we want to do this not so much as to collect some interesting ideas, but in order rather to grow as missionaries, each of us in his or her own special circumstances.
So what deep discoveries about mission can we hope to make on this journey, with Pope Leo’s letter as our roadmap?
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With thanks to Missionari Comboniani and Fr David Glenday MCCJ, where this article originally appeared.
