A Peruvian archbishop highlighted that the mission of the Catholic Church – not only of bishops, priests, religious or some lay people, but of all Christians – is to announce the Gospel, within the framework of the World Mission Day that is celebrated this Sunday, October 20.
“Mission that is not only the task of bishops, priests, men and women religious and some lay people, but every Christian is called to participate in it and make the Gospel present in the environments in which each one operates: the family, the center of study or work, the neighborhood, etc.,” highlights Bishop Javier del Río Alba, Archbishop of Arequipa (Peru).
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In an article sent to ACI Prensa, titled All invited¸ the prelate points out that “Pope Francis reminds us that the priority task of the Church is to announce the Gospel and that its mission ‘is a tireless going towards all humanity to invite it to encounter and communion with God… to the happiness of its Kingdom'”.
In the text, the archbishop highlights that “as the gospels relate, Jesus before leaving for Heaven ordered his apostles to go throughout the world, proclaim the Gospel and make disciples of all peoples (Mt 28,19; Mc 16, 15)”.
Mons. Del Río explains that it is necessary to “evangelize with the joy of those who experience the presence of God in their daily lives and the certainty that Jesus will return and take us with Him (Acts 1:11; Jn 14:2-3), and also with the patience of someone who has experienced in his own life the mercy of God who is compassionate and never tires of forgiving.”
Referring to the Pope’s message for World Mission Day Go and invite everyone to the banquetthe archbishop emphasizes that Francis is referring to the “divine banquet that we will fully savor at the end of time, but of which we already have a foretaste in this world when we properly celebrate the Eucharist, in which the Lord gives himself to us in his Word and feeds us with his Body and Blood.”
After specifying that everyone must be recipients of the invitation to live with God, the prelate finally quotes Pope Francis when he says that every human person can “participate in his grace that transforms and saves. You just need to say ‘yes’ to this divine and free gift.”
Walter Sánchez Silva
I have been a husband since 2008. My wife and I have three children here and one who went to heaven in 2023, before he was born. Since I joined ACI Prensa in 2005, I have had the opportunity to cover various events of the Catholic Church. Among them, the World Youth Days in Cologne, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro and the apostolic trips of Pope Benedict XVI to Mexico and of Pope Francis to South Korea. I have been sent to the Vatican to cover the Family synods, in 2015; of the Amazon, in 2019 and that of Synodality, in 2023. I closely follow the situation of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, which suffers persecution from the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega, as well as current ecclesiastical events in the region.