Cardinal Sepe on Source of Missionary Activity
Jun 14, 2006
The former prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples says that there are three ways in which missionary activity can return continually to the source of its motivation.
ROME, JUNE 13, 2006 (Zenit.org).- "Only prayer, contemplation and imitation of Christ enable an apostle to drink from the original source which is Jesus Christ," stated Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe.
In the June 4 Italian edition of the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, the cardinal commented on Benedict XVI's message, entitled "Charity, Soul of the Mission," prepared for the next World Mission Sunday, Oct. 26.
"In the face of the attempt to secularize the mission," the papal message "calls the people of God to return to the source of the mission: God-charity," emphasized Cardinal Sepe, who was recently named archbishop of Naples.
The 63-year-old prelate addressed the question, pointed out by numerous theologians, on "the relationship between the integral salvation of man, offered in Christ, and the action of liberation and promotion of man promoted by the Church, in order not to reduce salvation to a 'secularized' or only 'spiritualized' concept."
In this connection, the cardinal stressed that the magisterium expresses itself with clarity, stating that "the proclamation of the Gospel is a message of liberation in the messianic line of Christ." Such proclamation, he stated, "does not circumscribe the mission only to the religious field, being indifferent to man's temporal problems."
Incomplete
The primacy of man's spiritual vocation does not allow him to "substitute the proclamation of the Kingdom with the proclamation of human liberation," the cardinal wrote. "Without the proclamation of salvation in Jesus Christ, his contribution is incomplete."
Cardinal Sepe added that looking in general at activities of evangelization, one realizes that "the tension between the proclamation of Christ and human promotion, between the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of man (…) is not always reconciled in a balanced Christian synthesis."
"Local Churches and missionary forces are occupied and concerned primarily with activities of human promotion, in all its aspects," he noted.
However, Cardinal Sepe alluded to the work of the aforementioned in defense of the fundamental rights of man and of conscience-raising in societies tainted by great injustice, affirming that it is something "just and due."
Yet, "what is being questioned is not impassioned commitment to human promotion, but its profound motivation, which must be carried out in respect for the specific kind of service that Christ asked of his disciples," he added.
"Charity is always more than simple activity," the cardinal wrote, "it is charity that makes our action evangelizing."
In its mission of evangelizing the poor, the Church cannot but follow the way of Christ. Any other way would only be a substitute for the true way, Cardinal Sepe stated. The fruits of such work would not be lasting, "and not ideal to establish the Kingdom of love and peace in humanity," he added.
God's elect
Cardinal Sepe went on to stress that "Christian communities should be ever more like the communities of the Churches of the New Testament, such as those of Corinth, Ephesus, Thessalonica, made up, as Paul said, of God's elect."
The latter appeared as "squalid minorities, without means; seen negatively, scorned and persecuted; however, they were bearers of a new salvific message, which permeates and transforms mentalities, values and cultures," noted Cardinal Sepe.
And this continues to be the case today "in small Churches of outlying areas, which often live in the same situations of the communities-apostolic Churches and, like these, are often treated with contempt and not rarely persecuted, to the point of paying with blood for coherence and faithfulness to Christ," the prelate stated.
"Drinking from the source of charity, the mission becomes the soul of the whole action of the Church, which will be missionary until the end of time," he added. "What remains irreplaceable in the evangelizing service of charity is familiarity with God and abandonment to his will."
Cardinal Sepe on Source of Missionary Activity