RITE AND REASON:IN FORMER times "the missions" were seen as special, leaving one's home and going to foreign lands. Missionaries were often seen as an elite corps.
Then, in the Catholic tradition, along came the Second Vatican Council and mission, far from being the concern of a few, became the responsibility of every baptised person.
With this renewed vision there also came a shift in horizons, no longer solely determined by geography. So today missionaries are found in new places, for example, in the megacities of the world, working with groups like the youth, migrants, refugees, those in situations of dire poverty.
They are concerned with peace and reconciliation, the rights of women, children and minority groups, the liberation of oppressed peoples, and the protection of the created world. Crossing socio-cultural boundaries missionaries share their experience of God's love so that all may have an opportunity to experience God in their lives.
By their nature missionaries are people who are involved. They have empathy with those who are poor and marginalised and enter the places they inhabit, identifying with their frustrations and struggles, their sorrows and joys. They seek, together with victims, for root causes of injustice.
Appropriate actions and commitments are the concrete living out of the beatitudes of Christ and an imitation of his missionary methods. Currently missionaries are involved in facing the challenges of this new millennium: the 40 million HIV/Aids sufferers spread across the globe; the rise of tuberculosis and malaria worldwide; the sheer levels of poverty and hunger; the millions of refugees living in sub-human conditions, as well as conflict, corruption and debt. Missionaries try to bring God's love and hope into this brokenness.
It used to be that mission was a one-way street, from Europe and North America to Africa, Latin America and Asia. Today however, mission is very much a two-way process. This we see in Ireland with many missionaries from the "Two-Thirds World" serving immigrant communities and assisting in parishes.
Meanwhile, Pentecostal and Charismatic groups bring to mission their own way of being Christian, with an emphasis on prayer and the Holy Spirit, as well as vibrant worship. Liberation theology and basic Christian communities are gifts to the entire Church from Latin America, while South African Christians led the way in raising the consciousness of Christians to the incompatibility of faith with apartheid and racism.
The quality of witness given is essential. The missionary is one who has got to know personally the Christian God. Mission is about giving witness to that experience; often it takes the form of deeds rather than of preaching. The starting point is the courage to be humble; to turn away from any approach that smacks of superiority, religious imperialism, or a colonial church. To give witness is to be open to learn from others, to listen, to work together with people, to be a lover of people and to realise that "If one part is hurt, all are" (ICor. 12, 26).
The mission of witness is to persevere in the midst of suffering and to act with hope in the midst of hopelessness. The missionary is always fired with the idea of following Christ even when this goes against the ideas and values of one's own society or peer group.
The missionary also gives witness to the self-fulfilment of a person who lives by the Christian values of love, service, generosity, and the crossing over from one's own culture to reach out to those in need. Discipleship leads missionaries to a discontent with the status quo and into action for change in solidarity with the poor.
Many now realise that the work of advocacy is one of the most important strategies in promoting justice for developing countries. Decisions made in the northern hemisphere have enormous and long-lasting impact on the lives of hundreds of millions in the southern hemisphere.
Clearly advocacy is a strategy which calls for the greatest possible co-operation among mission and other groups who have as their common goal the creation of a more just world.
• Fr Brian O'Toole CSSp works at the Justice Department of the Irish Missionary Union in Dublin.