The Pope to Christians: to give a testimony of life that attracts

The Pope Video has just been released with the prayer intention that Francis entrusts to the entire Catholic Church through the Pope’s Global Prayer Network. In October, the month when the synodal journey begins and World Mission Day is celebrated, the Holy Father deepens the evangelizing nature of the Church and calls us all to be, precisely, missionary disciples.

This mission to which we are all baptized focuses above all on “being available to his call and living united to the Lord in the most daily things, work, meetings, daily occupations, the coincidences of each day, in us. always allowing to be guided by the Holy Spirit ”.

From the missionary Church to missionary disciples

In a few days, the Synodal Way of the Church will begin, a call to walk together, as a “pilgrim pilgrim and missionary of God”. Already in The Video of the Pope of August 2021, Francis had underlined the specific vocation of the Church, which is to evangelize. On this occasion, he advocated the pursuit, as a Church, of a “more missionary option”, which began with “the reform of ourselves”.

This month, the Pope deepens this call, inviting men and women to let themselves be “moved” by Christ and thus bear witness to a life that infects others, that attracts without forcing or demanding. In the video, he tells us that every testimony of life elicits admiration, and admiration makes others wonder, “How is it possible that this is so?” or “Where does this person get the love they treat everyone with, the kindness, the good humor?”

To be a missionary is to seek and promote personal, face to face, person to person encounter. In the book-interview “Without Him we can do nothing.” In a conversation about being a missionary in today’s world, where an exchange between Pope Francis and Italian journalist Gianni Valente is gathered, the Holy Father clearly says that “the Church grows by attraction and by testimony ”. It is about living close to Jesus, in meeting others: “if Christ attracts you, if you move and do things because you are attracted to Christ, others will notice it effortlessly. There is no need to demonstrate it, even less to expose it ”. It is about embodying the gospel in everyday life. One fire that ignites another.

Mission and synodality

“A Synodal Church must be a missionary Church, because the mission must begin with the dynamism of mutual listening, which is the premise and the necessary condition to welcome what the Spirit suggests to the Church”, affirms the Secretary General of the Synod of Bishops, Cardinal Mario Grech. “It is only by praying and opening our eyes to all that surrounds us – as Pope Francis reminds us – that we will be able to perceive the action of the Holy Spirit who is already manifesting himself, and to be a Church in movement, missionary, which avoids referentiality and is capable of being for all this “sacrament of care” which the world so needs “.

Discern and Recognize the Action of the Holy Spirit

Frédéric Fornos SJ, international director of the Pope’s World Prayer Network, recalls that “the Pope’s prayer intentions, which are presented each month, are part of the prayer and discernment of the Holy Father. These prayer intentions, in the context of the Synodal Path initiated by the Church, as the People of God, are an invitation to discern and to recognize how the Spirit of the Lord calls us to live the challenges of humanity and of life. mission of the Church. . Let us not forget that the Path of the Synod is for the mission, of a missionary Church “with open doors” (EG, n.46) and finds its source in prayer “.