Looking for missionary opportunities

While we are very aware of mission ad gentes opportunities and possibilities for priests and religious, the challenge is to be more creative in looking for opportunities for the laity in mission. We tend to see them as helpers in our projects rather than as missionaries in their own right. In many places there is a inclination to persuade the laity to fill the gap caused by the lack of clerical vocations; the lay missionaries are given the tasks that the priest or religious does not have time for. Laity in mission, especially families have the ability to reach out to sectors of society that have been difficult to reach. They also have the possibility of reaching out to people who not connected to the Church through their social, professional and work connections. The challenge is to discover how to promote the lay missionary vocation and not to regard them as substitutes for priests and religious but rather as a valuable gift for the whole Church.

Another important challenge is to help the associate reintegrate into the community of the local sending Church. The associate vocation is unique in the relationship that the associate maintains with the sending church. We have yet to discover how to take full advantage of associate missionaries returning and promoting the missionary dimension of the church in their community. We need to discover the possibilities of enhancing the role of the associate missionary as bridge builders between two cultures and two churches.