Crossing the Threshold of Hope by Pope John Paul II

Author:Pope John Paul II
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 9780307764577
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2013-07-31T00:00:00+00:00

The awareness that the entire Church is in statu missionis (in a state of mission) was strongly felt in the last century, as it is today, especially among the ancient Churches of western Europe. In the past (for example, in France), fully half of the priests in some dioceses went off to the missions.

The encyclical Redemptoris Missio, published a few years ago, embraces this distant and recent past, beginning with the Areopagus in Athens and continuing up to our own time, in which episodes similar to the one at the Areopagus have occurred over and over again. The Church evangelizes, the Church proclaims Christ, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life; Christ who is the one mediator between God and man. And despite its human weakness, the Church never tires of proclaiming Christ. The great missionary wave that arose in the last century was directed toward all continents and, in particular, toward Africa. Today on that continent we meet a fully established indigenous Church. There are many black bishops. Africa is becoming a continent of missionary vocations. And vocations—by the grace of God—are not lacking. As they are diminishing in Europe, the more they are growing in Africa and Asia.

Perhaps, one day, the words of Cardinal Hyacinth Thiandoum, who foresaw the possibility that the Old World would be evangelized by black missionaries, will prove true. Again, we must ask ourselves if this is not evidence of the Church’s ever renewed vitality. I bring this up in order to throw a different light on the somewhat troubling question of the number of Christians, and of Catholics in particular. Truly, there are no grounds for losing hope. If the world is not Catholic from a denominational point of view, it is nonetheless profoundly permeated by the Gospel. We can even say that the mystery of the Church, the Body of Christ, is in some way invisibly present in it.

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