In the afternoon, the protagonist was the cardinal Christopher Lopezarchbishop of Rabat, who, after having presided over the morning Eucharist in the Basilica of Mary Help of Christians, gave the main lecture. On this occasion, developing the theme of mission – on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the First Salesian Missionary Sending – the cardinal illustrated with clear and vivid language the deep and current value of the mission, warning about possible and frequent errors.
Throughout his speech, the cardinal carried out an analysis that separated the common, but erroneous, approaches to missions from the authentic value of the Salesian mission. He specified several:
Confusing mission with apostolic activities. Cardinal López stressed that “the mission is to love” and is not reduced to educating, building or healing, because it has to do, rather, with being “signs and bearers of God’s love for young people.”
Search for a reward in love. On the contrary, the missionary must not love to be loved, but rather offer an “unconditional, free and expansive” love, like that of God.
Thinking that the mission is for a few specialists. Instead, each Christian is called to be a missionary wherever he is, without having to go to distant lands.
Relate the mission to a geographic dimension. The mission is universal and must be lived in any context, not only in the traditional “mission countries”, since even the territories of ancient Christian tradition need missionaries.
Believing that being missionaries in other places does not make sense. With this point, apparently in contradiction to the previous ones, Cardinal López stressed that the missionary dimension of the Church is based on sharing the faith and that the presence of missionaries continues to be fundamental to awaken missionary consciousness in everyone.
Thinking that the mission is to establish the Church. In this sense, the cardinal emphasizes that the main mission is the announcement of the Kingdom of God, not the construction of ecclesial structures. In this regard, the cardinal also highlighted the commitment of good missionaries to cooperate with all believers and all people of good will.
Forgetting the role of the Holy Spirit. We must not put ourselves in the center and consider ourselves the main authors of the mission: the Holy Spirit is the first missionary and already acts in the hearts of people before the arrival of the missionaries. Cardinal López’s reflection was, therefore, a heartfelt call to return to what is essential. And in his final words, the cardinal summarized his entire intervention, stating that “we are all missionary-disciples of Christ and his Kingdom (…) As a Church, we must live at the service of the mission always and everywhere, and “The mission, which consists of announcing and promoting the Kingdom of God, is realized, for us in the Salesian Family, in loving and being signs and bearers of God’s love for young people.”
