Pope Leo XIV is an Augustinian and a missionary. For him, mission is not an institutional task, but a personal response to God’s call. Authentic mission requires a profound interior life: listening to God, conversion, and humility.
In the missionary process, the person first allows to be him/herself transformed and only then is sent, not to carry out their mission “from above,” but by sharing people’s lives with patience, accompaniment, and daily faithfulness. As Leo XIV said:
In an age marked by conflict and division, we need authentic witnesses of kindness and charity to remind us that we are all brothers and sisters. Words are not enough. Indeed, ‘love and the deepest convictions must be nourished, and this is done with gestures. To remain in the world of ideas and debates, without frequent and sincere personal gestures, will be the ruin of our most cherished dreams’ (Dilexi te, 119).
The mission is not a project of the clergy or specialists, but a total commitment that involves staying, accompanying, and sharing. Christian solidarity is not a political idea or a generic feeling of social altruism, but an evangelical imperative born of faith.
Not every human being is or feels altruistic; but every Christian should feel like a missionary. Furthermore, Christian solidarity is never about helping ‘from the outside,’ but about recognizing the dignity of others and accepting that the suffering of others concerns me. The Church is not an NGO, but its members cannot be indifferent to injustice.
The Gospel message proclaims unequivocally the preferential option for the poor. It gives space and prominence to the voiceless, attends to the most vulnerable, and rejects even the slightest complicity with racism or hatred of the poor. It is about loving and feeling comfortable in the presence of the impoverished, the migrant, the sick, the elderly, the singled out, the discriminated against, the forgotten…
Mission is the criterion for discernment: only the Church that stands with the vulnerable is credible. And this is not just about material assistance, but about creating bonds, healing divisions, and promoting a culture of encounter. As Saint Augustine said and did in his Church of Hippo, solidarity builds the unity of the ecclesial and human body.
The mission as total commitment is the central theme of the third issue of Canta y Camina, dedicated to the centenary of the Lábrea Mission. One hundred years in which the Augustinian Recollect Family has journeyed through the jungle to encounter some of the most isolated and forgotten peoples in the world.
We ask today’s missionaries what challenges they feel and we pay tribute to those who felt that call to mission so deeply that they stayed in it forever.
