Mission
is defined in the Ad Gentes as the
“term usually given to those… heralds of the Gospel, sent out by the Church… to
carry out the task of preaching the Gospel and planting the Church among
peoples or groups who do not yet believe in Christ (AG, 6).”According to
missiologists Stephen Bevans and Roger Schroeder, this is the stricter sense of
mission.[1]
But this idea is presented in the context of the wider and deeper reality that
the church, as such is missionary by its very nature, because it itself is the
result of the overflowing love of God, expressed in the mission of the Son and
the mission of the Holy Spirit (AG, 2). Mission, therefore, is understood
fundamentally as rooted in the continual self-giving and self-revelation of God
within the history of creation. This movement of God should not only be
understood in the mystery of God, but as God moving in saving love within the
world. Thus, we are also called to participate and be agents and cooperators in
God’s outreach to the whole creation.[2]
In
Evangelii Nuntiandi, mission is
defined distinctly in paragraph 15 that says “The Church remains in the world
when the Lord of glory returns to the Father. She remains as a sign… of a new
presence of Jesus, of His departure and of His permanent presence. She prolongs
and continues Him. And it is above all His mission and His condition of being
an evangelizer that she is called upon to continue. For the Christian community
is never closed in upon itself. The intimate life of this community… only
acquires its full meaning when it becomes a witness, when it evokes admiration
and conversion, and when it becomes the preaching and proclamation of the Good
News. Thus it is the whole Church that receives the mission to evangelize, and
the work of each individual member is important for the whole (EN, 15).”
In
Redepmtoris Missio, mission must be
understood in the light of Christ’s redeeming act in the history of salvation. Mission
is an issue of faith, an accurate indicator of our faith in Christ and his love
for us (RM, 11). Jesus Christ is the center and goal of mission of the Church
(RM 6). For the Church cannot fail to
proclaim that Jesus came to reveal the face of God and to merit salvation for
all humanity by his cross and resurrection (RM 11).
Then
after all the three major church documents on mission, a contextualized
document on mission was appropriated for the need of Asia in the Post-synodal
exhortation Ecclesia in Asia. Mission
is to respect and appreciate local cultures (EA 9); the engagement with
cultures (EA 21); to share the light of Jesus Christ with everyone (EA 10) that
centered on salvation for it can be found in the person of the Son of God made
man and the mission entrusted to him alone as the Son, a mission of service and
love for the life of all (EA 13); and through inculturation the Church, for her
part, becomes a more intelligible sign of what she is, and a more effective
instrument of mission (EA 21).
Asia
is home to many cultures and religions. Thus, an emphasis on inculturation was addressed
because it has challenged the church how to transmit her values and truths from
the multi-ethnic, multi-religious and multi-cultural situation. The church
urges to missionaries and evangelizers to take from various cultures the positive
elements already found in them.
A
more particular and specific approach was addressed in the Asia in making a
holistic evangelization, which is through the FABC’s Triple Dialogue Approach. Triple dialogue is an operative
paradigm of holistic evangelization, which is the interpretive key to
understanding and appreciating the inculturation process in Asia today.[3]
Triple Dialogue is dialogue with the poor of Asia, dialogue with the religions
of Asia and dialogue with Asia’s diverse cultures.[4]
The dialogue with cultures takes place through the process of inculturation;
the dialogue of religions takes place through interreligious dialogue and
dialogue with the poor is in view of facilitating integral human development
and liberation.
Divergence and Convergence
Each
document was written for a particular context. However, they contain the same
essential content of the faith. The uniqueness and emphasis of each document in
the message would be considered as the divergence. So, divergence matters on
the center and goal of each document.
Ad
Gentes, on the first hand, is centered on the role of the Trinity in the
missionary activity of the Church. It is said that when the document was
created it was patterned from the document on the church, Lumen Gentium, which
is Trinitarian. The foundation of mission here participates in the Trinitarian
life and mission of God.
On
the second hand, based from the definition of
EN above, mission then means what it means to be church, because to be
church means to share in the mission of Jesus, which was to preach, to serve
and to witness with his whole heart to the kingdom of God. As the church
receives the authority of proclaiming his life and teachings from Jesus, she
then has to preach, to serve and to witness in his name. The task of
evangelizing does not limit to clerics and religious but to community of
believers that includes the laity.
On
the third hand, for RM, according to Pope John Paul II, the proclamation of the
name of Jesus Christ is the ‘permanent priority of mission’ not only because of
‘Christ’s explicit mandate’, but also because men and women should not be
deprived of the truth, the good news that they are ‘loved and saved by God.’
(RM, 44). All peoples have a right to the fullness of truth, and so the church
must be in mission.
The
convergence between AG, EN, and RM is about the theology of mission per se,
which can be grounded that mission is a participation in the and mission of the
Trinity; mission as continuation of the mission of Jesus and mission as the
proclamation of Christ as the world’s only savior. The Church here is only an
agent in mission as she was commanded by Jesus Christ. Moreover, the documents
provide a framework in the study of mission in general.
The convergence then between EA and
FABC’s Triple dialogue deals with the practical and contextualized application
of the three preceding church documents.
But above all, one of the most
important things that we should know about here is that the church is not of
ultimate importance. What is ultimate importance is the reign of God, and it is
from the church’s commitment to fulfill her mission to preach, serve, witness
to that reign that the church receives and maintains its identity.[5]
[1] Stephen
B. Bevans and Roger P. Schroeder, “Constants
in Context: A theology of Mission for Today,” (Philippines: Claretian
Publications, 2005), 286.
[2] Constants in Context: A theology of Mission
for Today, 287.
[3] James H. Kroeger, MM, “The Faith-Culture
Dialogue in Asia: Ten FABC Insights on Inculturation” in East Asian Pastoral Review, Vol. 45 No. 3 (http://eapi.admu.edu.ph/content/faith-culture-dialogue-asia-ten-fabc-insights-inculturation).
[4] Clemens Mendonca, Mission According to the
Catholic Church in Asia: A New Way of Being Church. (http://www.edinburgh2010.org/fileadmin/files/edinburgh2010/files/pdf/Clemens%20
Mendonca%20 2009-2-27.pdf).
[5] Constants in Context: A theology of Mission
for Today, 396.
