An agreement was reached that the missionary activity of the church is founded on Christ the head of the church. From the discussion, it was evident that Christ did not aim at starting a church per se. his objective was not to begin a collection of truths through which people would live. His move was neither to start a religious movement through which he would be remembered, nor one through which he would counter Judaism. The fact that he did not wish his revelation to die with him but to progress to the entire world (Mt 28:20) shows that he had a vision hence the decision to call the twelve apostles. Everybody in our discussion group agreed that Christ’s mission was to continue the effort of his father to save humanity. After all Christ himself had said a number of times that he never came to do his will but to do the will of his Father (Jn 6:38). Christ mission was therefore the mission of the Father, and his calling of the apostles was a preparation of the beginning of the process of incorporating human beings in the divine salvific plan. Mark the evangelist says that the twelve were called to be with him (hence to learn from him) and to be sent out to proclaim the good news (Mk 3:14)of what they had seen and heard (Lk. 24:48).
With this acknowledged the youth group accepted that since the church is apostolic in nature, it is also missionary in nature. The missionary activity of the church is grounded on the desire and effort of Christ to make the Father known and loved, and hence to transform the world into a loving family of God. It is this desire and effort that Christ passed to the apostles and to the church in general. Today every Christian is called to participate in that effort of spreading the love of God to his or her neighbor, a move that will see God’s love reach everybody. This is a reminder that through baptism every Christian is chosen and sent to be a messenger of Christ. As such, this follows St. Pauls’s realization that people cannot call on him whom they do not believe, and they cannot believe him whom they have not heard. And people cannot hear of him if no one preaches to them about him, and there can be no preacher unless one is sent (cf. Rom. 10:14,15). In as much as this month is concerned, it is a period in which first we celebrate the gift of missionary Charisms in the church through different missionary institutes, and second we celebrate the call of every baptized Christian to be the hands and legs of God for the lame, eyes of God for the blind, and voice of God for the voiceless. It is a time to celebrate the achievements of missionary effort in the world, and a moment for the consecrated missionaries to manifest him to whom they consecrated their lives becoming the salt of the earth and the light of the world (cf. Mt. 5:13,14).
As the youth meeting ended, there was consensus that over the years, the Consolata missionaries in world had managed to live up to their call to evangelize and promote humanity by being sensitive to the needs of the people and responding adequately.
