COURSE LEARNING PACKETS Document Code FM-STL-014

Saint Louis University Revision No. 01

School of Teacher Education and Liberal Arts Effectivity June 07, 2021
Page 1 of 4

CHURCH TEACHING
As people of God, the Church is missionary. It does not exist for itself. Therefore,
according to E. Castro, a missiologist, the mission is the “fundamental reality of Christian
life.” When we were baptized, we took upon this mission.

Read the following excerpts from the message of Pope Francis. Focus on the
relationship between baptism and mission. “Baptized and Sent: The Church of Christ on
Mission in the World.”

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

For October 2019, I have asked that the whole Church revive her missionary
awareness and commitment as we commemorate the centenary of the Apostolic Letter
Maximum Illud of Pope Benedict XV (30 November 1919). Its farsighted and prophetic
vision of the apostolate has made me realize once again the importance of renewing
the Church’s missionary commitment and giving fresh evangelical impulse to her work of
preaching and bringing to the world the salvation of Jesus Christ, who died and rose
again.

The present message's title is the same as that of October’s Missionary Month:
Baptized and Sent: The Church of Christ on Mission in the World. Celebrating this month
will help us rediscover our faith's missionary dimension in Jesus Christ, a faith graciously
bestowed on us in baptism. Our filial relationship with God is not something simply private
but always about the Church. Through our communion with God, Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit, we are born to new life together with so many of our other brothers and sisters. This
divine life is not a product for sale – we do not practice proselytism – but a treasure to be
given, communicated, and proclaimed: that is the meaning of mission. We received this
gift freely, sharing it freely (cf. Mt 10:8), without excluding anyone. God wills that all
people be saved by coming to know the truth and experiencing his mercy through the
ministry of the Church, the universal sacrament of salvation (cf. 1 Tim 2:4; Lumen
Gentium, 48).

The Church is on a mission in the world. Faith in Jesus Christ enables us to see all
things in their proper perspective as we view the world with God’s eyes and heart. Hope
opens us up to the eternal horizons of the divine life that we share. Charity, of which we
have a foretaste in the sacraments and fraternal love, urges us to go forth to the ends of
the earth (cf. Mic5:4; Mt 28:19; Acts 1:8; Rom 10:18). A Church that presses forward to
the farthest frontiers requires a constant and ongoing missionary conversion. How many
saints, how many men and women of faith, witness to the fact that this unlimited
openness, this going forth in mercy, is indeed possible and realistic, for it is driven by love
and its most profound meaning as gift, sacrifice, and gratuitousness (cf. 2 Cor 5:14-21)!
The man who preaches to God must be a man of God (cf. Maximum Illud).
 COURSE LEARNING PACKETS Document Code FM-STL-014
Saint Louis University Revision No. 01
School of Teacher Education and Liberal Arts Effectivity June 07, 2021
Page 2 of 4

This missionary mandate touches us: I am a mission, always; you are a mission,
always; every baptized man and woman is a mission. People in love never stand still:
they are drawn out of themselves; they are attracted and attract others in turn; they give
themselves to others and build life-giving relationships. As far as God’s love is concerned,
no one is useless or insignificant. Each of us is a mission to the world, for each of us is the
fruit of God’s love. Even if parents can betray their love by lies, hatred, and infidelity,
God never takes back his gift of life. He has destined each of his children to share in his
divine and eternal life (cf. Eph 1:3-6).

I am a mission, always; you are a mission; every baptized man and woman is a
mission. People in love never stand still: they are drawn out of themselves; they are
attracted and attract others in turn; they give themselves to others and build life-giving
relationships.

Our mission, then, is rooted in the fatherhood of God and the motherhood of the
Church. The mandate given by the Risen Jesus at Easter is inherent in Baptism: as the
Father has sent me, so I send you, filled with the Holy Spirit, for the reconciliation of the
world (cf. Jn 20:19-23; Mt 28:16-20). This mission is part of our identity as Christians; it makes
us responsible for enabling all men and women to realize their vocation to be adoptive
children of the Father, to recognize their dignity, and to appreciate the intrinsic worth of
every human life, from conception until natural death. Today’s rampant secularism,
when it becomes an aggressive cultural rejection of God’s active fatherhood in our
history, is an obstacle to authentic human fraternity, which finds expression in reciprocal
respect for each person's life. Without the God of Jesus Christ, every difference is
reduced to a baneful threat, making any absolute fraternal acceptance and fruitful unity
within the human race impossible.

The universality of the salvation offered by God in Jesus Christ led Benedict XV to
call for an end to all forms of nationalism and ethnocentrism, or the merging of the
preaching of the Gospel with the economic and military interests of the colonial powers.
In his Apostolic Letter Maximum Illud, the Pope noted that the Church’s universal mission
requires setting aside exclusivist membership ideas in one’s own country and ethnic
group. The opening of the culture and the community to the salvific newness of Jesus
Christ requires leaving behind every kind of excessive ethnic and ecclesial introversion.

Today too, the Church needs men and women who, by their baptism, respond
generously to the call to leave behind home, family, country, language, and local
Church and to be sent forth to the nations, to a world not yet transformed by the
sacraments of Jesus Christ and his holy Church. By proclaiming God’s word, bearing
witness to the Gospel, and celebrating the life of the Spirit, they summon to conversion,
baptize and offer Christian salvation, with respect for the freedom of each person and in
dialogue with the cultures and religions of the peoples to whom they are sent. The missio
ad gentes, which is always necessary for the Church, thus contribute in a fundamental
way to the process of ongoing conversion in all Christians. Faith in the Easter event of
Jesus; the ecclesial mission received in baptism; the geographic and cultural
 COURSE LEARNING PACKETS Document Code FM-STL-014
Saint Louis University Revision No. 01
School of Teacher Education and Liberal Arts Effectivity June 07, 2021
Page 3 of 4

detachment from oneself and one’s own home; the need for salvation from sin and
liberation from personal and social evil: all these demands the mission that reaches to
the very ends of the earth.

To men and women missionaries, and to all those who, under their baptism, share
in any way in the mission of the Church, I send my heartfelt blessing.

Under baptism, the mission is a Christian responsibility. The word baptism has its
origin in the Greek word "bapto," which means “to dip” or “to immerse.” We usually
associate baptism with water, which relates to life, death, cleansing, and, to some extent,
growth. Baptism is understood as dipping or immersing oneself in the water, symbolizing
death or being buried. And when one comes out of the water, one symbolically begins
a new life. In baptism, we die from an old way of life of selfishness to a new way of life
that resembles Christ – selfless and compassionate.

In the olden times, the Church Father Tertullian used the word “Sacramentum” to
refer to baptism. But before the word was used for baptism, it referred to a soldier’s loyalty
oath. Along this line, baptism can be understood as a pledge of our loyalty to Christ by
living according to how he lived. In the process, we are transformed, transforming society
by our lives. That is why there are times during our liturgical celebrations (particularly
during Easter) when we are asked to renew our baptismal promises to be true to what
Jesus stood for. Our baptism is meaningful if we are faithful to these promises like loyal
soldiers.

Undeniably, celebrations of baptism are prevalent among Filipino Catholics and

other Christians. Such popularity is intensified by our strong family ties and fondness for
children. This fact makes us look at baptism as an avenue for strengthening familial and
friendship ties. There is nothing wrong with this. But the most important thing about the
sacrament remains this: Baptism calls us to a lifetime of commitment to a new and
renewed life of mission.

In Christian anthropology, or how the person is understood in Christianity, to be

human is to be other-directed. The meaning of human life is to be in a community with
others. In Jesus’ practice and teaching, this communion with others, especially with the
weak and the oppressed, that the Gospels highlight. In his letter to the Romans, Saint Paul
says that nobody lives for themself alone (confer Romans 14).

Edward Schillebeeckx, one of the most well-known Catholic theologians, speaks

about a relationship as central to understanding the nature of human beings. He coined
“anthropological constants” to refer to relationships we have to build genuinely human.
These are relationships with ourselves (our bodies), relationships with the other, the
relationship between how we think and act, relationships with the structures of society,
relationships with history and culture, and relationships with the divine. We, human beings,
therefore, are bundles of relationships. The meaning and happiness of our life consist in
going out of ourselves and sometimes denying ourselves for the sake of the other. This
was one of the implications of the statement of Jesus in the Gospel of John when he said
 COURSE LEARNING PACKETS Document Code FM-STL-014
Saint Louis University Revision No. 01
School of Teacher Education and Liberal Arts Effectivity June 07, 2021
Page 4 of 4

that unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains a single seed. But it
will produce a hundredfold when it falls and dies (Confer Jn 12:24).

One concept in the Filipino culture that expresses our nature as human beings
constituted by relationships is “kapwa.” The kapwa is defined by the Filipino theologian
Jose de Mesa as the one with whom we share a common humanity, with whom we are
in solidarity. Everybody is kapwa. If we recognize that we share a common humanity with
others, we will care for them as we care for ourselves. This recognition is the beginning of
empathy that enables us to do something for others, especially those who are
discriminated against because of their gender such as women and girls. This is done even
when it becomes inconvenient, even if it entails sacrifices. In Christianity, the model of
authentic pakikipagkapwa is Jesus, of course. He made the ultimate sacrifice – giving up
his life so others could live.

As human beings, as a Church, we are other-directed. We are missionaries

according to our nature. There are many songs in our Churches that express this reality.
Look for some of these songs; learn them, sing them, and teach them to others. Below is
an example of the song “Sino Ako” by Fr. Jose Castañeda that describes who we are
and our role flowing from that identity.