The Pope has said that every member of the Catholic Church has "the privilege and grave obligation" of spreading the Gospel. "To a certain degree," he said in his message for Mission Sunday yesterday, "each of us is personally responsible, before God, for those millions of people who are without faith". The size of the task involved, and the recognition of the inadequacy of one's energies, might lead to discouragement, but it should be remembered always that however praiseworthy and indispensable were human efforts, "mission is primarily God's work". It took place in the Spirit.
He said the call to evangelisation was addressed to "all Christians" but that not everyone was called to set out on a mission as such. People were missionaries as much by what they were "even at home, at work, in a hospital bed, in a convent cloister . . ." The "where" was not what was important, rather the "how".
He pointed to St Therese of Lisieux, patron saint of missionaries who was yesterday raised to the status of Doctor of the Church. She had given "an exemplary answer" to the universal call to take responsibility for missionary activity, he said.
Her short life - she died in her 25th year, 100 years ago this year - and teaching demonstrated "the close bond between mission and contemplation". In fact, he said, there could be no mission "without a life of intense prayer and communion with the Lord and His sacrifice on the Cross".
He hoped, "with all my heart", that on the eve of the millennium the whole church would experience a new impulse of missionary commitment; that every baptised person would make such a commitment, and try to live the programme of the patron saint of the missions.
