Apostolic Life

As the Father has sent Me, I also send you (Jn 20:21). Fidelity to the missionary mandate of Jesus Christ, which implies continuing his mission, is the foundation of the missionary vocation of the Church and of the Institute. “‘The Church’s universal mission is born of faith in Jesus Christ’^[1]. If this faith in Jesus Christ is falsified, the mission will be adulterated and will no longer be the “mission of the Church”. On the contrary, right faith in the Incarnate Word is the milestone on which all the dynamism of the mission rests^[2]”.

            “The spiritual gift which priests receive at their ordination prepared them not for a sort of limited and narrow mission but for the widest possible and universal mission of salvation “even to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8), for every priestly ministry shares in the universality of the mission entrusted by Christ to his apostles.”^[3]

            “The missionary is the man of charity: in order to announce to every man that he is loved by God and that he himself can love, he must give witness of charity towards all, spending his life for his neighbor. […] Like Christ, he must love the Church: Christ loved the Church and gave Himself up for her (Eph 5,25)^[4]”.

            “We cannot be content when we consider the millions of our brothers and sisters, who like us have been redeemed by the blood of Christ, but who live in ignorance of the love of God. For each believer, as for the entire Church, the missionary task must remain foremost, for it concerns the eternal destiny of humanity and corresponds to God’s mysterious and merciful plan”.^[5]