CHAPTER IV

BISHOPS AND RELIGIOUS PURSUING THE SELF-SAME
MISSION OF THE PEOPLE OF GOD

Ecclesial mission flows from the "fountain of love" (AG 2)

15. The mission of the People of God is one. In a certain sense it constitutes the heart of the entire ecclesial mystery. The Father, in fact, "has consecrated the Son and sent [Him] into the world" (Jn 10:36), "Mediator between God and men" (AG 3). On Pentecost "Christ sent the Holy Spirit from the Father to exercise inwardly His saving influence, and to promote the spread of the Church" (AG 4). Thus the Church, throughout her history, "is by her very nature missionary" (AG 2; cf. LG 17), in Christ and in virtue of the Spirit. All -- pastors, laymen and religious -- each according to his specific vocation, are called to be apostolically committed (cf. n. 4). This commitment arises from the love of the Father; the Holy Spirit, then, nourishes it, "giving life to ecclesiastical structures, being as it were their soul, and inspiring in the hearts of the faithful that same spirit of mission which impelled Christ Himself" (AG 4). Consequently the mission of the People of God can never consist solely in the activity of the exterior life, since apostolic commitment cannot in the absolute be reduced to mere human promotion, however efficacious it be, because every pastoral and missionary initiative is rooted in participation in the mystery of the Church. And, in fact, the Church's mission is by its very nature nothing else than the mission of Christ continued in the history of the world. It consists principally in the co-participation in the obedience of Him (cf. Heb 5:8) who offered Himself to the Father for the life of the world.