Our Mission Today

The characteristics of mission today, viewed through the filter of the Comboni charism are as follows:
  • The proclamation of the Kingdom of God i.e. the proclamation and witnessing of the Kingdom of God expressed especially through the following values: life as gift and presence of God, truth, justice, peace, reconciliation, integrity of creation, freedom and integral liberation from all forms of enslavement; the primacy of persons over things and institutions, of man over work, of work over capital, of the universal destiny of goods over private property, of ethics over technology, of mercy over justice. For Comboni the absolute priority of the Gospel was clear in so far as the missionary must consider himself as sent to serve only the Kingdom of God. The Good News is the mystery of Christ, the mystery of death and resurrection that must be mediated in the present time through gestures and attitudes which manifest the love of God.
  • Mission as dialogue. This dialogue is to be cultivated and promoted in all its expressions: religious, intercultural, social, political, the promotion of multi-ethnic fraternity in all nations and in the various continents facilitating the birth of local Churches that are ethnically diversified, through the inculturation of the faith.
  • Mission and collaboration. Collaboration with the local Church and with other missionary agents.
  • Inculturation. Inculturation understood as presenting the Christian experience of a local Church in the culture of its people, expressed and communicated with the elements of this same culture while also becoming a force animating, orienting and facilitating the growth of the said culture, thus contributing to its renewal and enriching the life of the Universal Church.
  • Option for the poor. The option for the poor is an evangelical choice giving credibility to the work of evangelisation, proving its authenticity when it allows the poor to be Church and helps the Church to be more evangelical, poor and of the poor – a Church that is the pilgrim people of God, a community that is alive and at the service of the Kingdom according to the vision of the Second Vatican Council. Such an option includes denouncing the economic and cultural dependence of many peoples who have become victims of exploitation.
  • Promotion of life: “Mission is about life which always develops ….” (CA ’09, Introduction); “We feel called to denounce injustice and to proclaim the Word that liberates and promotes life in fullness” (cf. RL 61)” (CA ’09, 5.4b); “We are called to share the dream of God who wants a life that is full and happy for all” (CA ’09, 23); “In order to live our spirituality we feel the importance of being nourished by God and of loving life” (CA ’09, 27).
  • Discipleship. This is the call of the Father to follow Jesus and to continue his mission with the strength of the Spirit aware that we are not the owners or the protagonists of mission, but simple collaborators, servants of a project that belongs to the Father, that grows in the measure that we become disciples of the Son, putting our trust in the presence of the Spirit in history, in local cultures, in the Church and in men and women of good will.