The Jubilee as point of departure for mission. The words of Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe, Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples

BY ANDREA TORNIELLI

“We are certainly not seduced by the naive expectation that, faced with the great challenges of our time, we shall find some magic formula. No, we shall not be saved by a formula but by a Person, and the assurance which He gives us: ‘I am with you!’” Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe, Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, chose these words written by John Paul II in his letter Novo millennio ineunte to relaunch the missionary challenge to the people of the Meeting who had come to hear him speak on Tuesday afternoon, August 21st. “God chose to count on man’s collaboration to communicate Himself to everybody,” Giancarlo Cesana said as he introduced the theme of the meeting. Before the Cardinal spoke, Jesus Carrascosa, Director of the Communion and Liberation International Center in Rome, recounted the experience of the Movement that is now present in seventy countries: “Before encountering the Movement, my wife and I were searching for God in our own way. We had a great expectation but we were not able even to formulate it properly. Then God willed this providential circumstance: we owned an anarchic publishing house, and in 1975 at the Frankfurt Book Fair one of us came into contact with the CL experience. This was the beginning of the Movement in Spain. It was an absolutely unimaginable experience. I had never seen a Christianity like this, a Christianity that had to do with my life and with my reason, that enabled me to talk with anybody.” Continuing his story, Carrascosa added, “Giussani had intuited for some time that the missionary presence in the world needed something physical, a point of reference, a place that could be encountered in the capital of the Church. Thus when in 1995 Fr Giussani asked us to leave Spain to begin the adventure of the International Center in Rome, we set out on this great adventure. In the beginning we were not at all sure of what it entailed, but over time, reality enabled us to take concrete steps, placing this experience at the service of the Church as a response to man’s expectations. Your Eminence, we place this gift we have received in your hands, so that it may reach the hands of the Holy Father.”
At the beginning of his talk, Sepe greeted Fr Giussani, with whom he had just spoken on the telephone. “Even if he is not present here,” the Cardinal said, “we can almost reach out and touch his spiritual presence.”

An endless beginning
The Cardinal then proposed the Jubilee as the point of departure for mission. “During the Holy Year, Jesus Christ was announced in some way to everyone.” “For an event like the Jubilee, the word ‘end’ does not exist,” because “He who is, continues to grant His mercy that, like a river in flood, has watered the most arid corners of the earth.” “Jesus Christ,” Sepe added, “continues to be present with the intact force of His fascination, with the regenerating power of His mercy, with His surprising capacity to correspond to the inextinguishable thirst for happiness that is a part of our being creatures, offering an experience of happiness that would otherwise be impossible.”

Certainly, the prospects on the horizon are not encouraging. The Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples cited instances of “violence and abuse” which seem to be victorious in so many parts of the world, spoke of the crisis of the younger generations, and mentioned the “ecological emergency.” He did not hide the fact that “the missionary path is a difficult one, marked by the Paschal mystery,” and that it “records conversions, but also apparent defeats.” The Christian’s awareness in the face of all this is the same as the apostle Paul’s: “I am glad of weaknesses, insults, constraints, persecutions and distress for Christ’s sake.” “Faced with such great challenges on a planetary scale,” Cardinal Sepe went on to say, “I remind you of the Holy Father’s appeal to the entire Church for a renewed missionary commitment: ‘Missionary evangelization is the foremost service that the Church can render to every man and all of mankind in today’s world, which has seen amazing conquests but seems to have lost the meaning of the ultimate realities and of existence itself.’”

No formulas
There are no magical formulas to be applied, it is not the theories or projects studied at a desk that can save the world, but “a Person, and the assurance which He gives us: ‘I am with you!’” Dear friends,” the Cardinal said in conclusion, “do not be discouraged in front of the challenges that await you, and never furl the sails of your enthusiasm and passion for the Christian life, that is, true life. In the mysterious and efficacious mystery of unity and charity, let’s take the ship of the Church out to sail on all the seas of the world.”