By Rev Prakash Mallavarapu,
Archbishop of Visakhapatnam –
“Baptized and Sent” has been the theme placed before the Church by Pope Francis inviting all of us in the Church, the community of disciples of Jesus, to see with the eyes of faith and with a heart filled with hope how we and the world are in need of the Good News of the Kingdom. We the Believing and Baptized can only bear witness to the Good News and proclaim the same. The momentum of the mission of the Church has to be kept alive and sustained through our personal committed involvement in this mission. For this, the challenge is first and foremost at the individual and personal sphere of life of the “believer-disciples” that we are.
By this we mean, in our real life how much we love Jesus Christ and the Good News of the Kingdom? How deeply are we convinced to personalize and live according to Jesus and the Good News of the Kingdom? Both to bear witness and to explicitly proclaim the Good News, there is the need for personal rootedness in Jesus Christ. This we know is a gradual but continuous conversion and transformation that should keep happening in the daily life situations. The conversion and transformation will naturally be evident in attitudes, actions, in small or big options the “disciple-believer” prefers and decisions he/she takes. Those around will be able to “hear” and “see” Jesus and the Good News of the Kingdom in and through us, the “Baptized and Sent.”
It is the “other” individuals or communities who are the addressees of our proclamation: We and our life are relational. We are always relating, to God, other human beings and the world at large! This is the beauty of our human reality, we relate and affect others. Others also affect us! But, how do we relate and affect others? This is something that we need to become personally aware and be consciously in the relationships with the realities of life while relating to God, fellow human beings, and the world of nature. So, aware of being “Baptized and Sent” we have to relate with the above.
As men and women who are “disciple-believers” with a mission or on a mission, we want to live and act accordingly. It just means that we strive to live our identity that is ours and the identity that we have accepted in faith. Holy Father, Pope Francis articulates this idea saying, “In virtue of their baptism, all the members of the people of God have become missionary disciples (cf Mt:19)…. Every Christian is a missionary to the extent that he or she has encountered Christ Jesus… By the difference we show in our way of relating to the realities of life, with God, fellow human and the world of nature, we are to proclaim like the first disciples who said, “We have found the Messiah” (Jn 1:41) (Evangelii Gaudium, no. 120).
We have understood the Church’s call and now we have to “Act”: The Holy Father’s invitation to observe the Extraordinary Missionary Month has been widely publicized and much has been written as explanations and implications of the invitation to a renewed commitment to the mission of proclaiming Jesus Christ and His Good News of the Kingdom. It is time to act and it is time to set out on the mission! At the individual level, it is in one’s sincere effort to walk the talk. It is not so easy because discipleship and living according to Jesus and His Good news demand of us certain attitudes and decisions in matters of power, money or wealth, justice, respect for the rights of other people, treatment of the poor and the needy, upholding human dignity and honor due to the fellow human beings, ethics and morals, etc.