Every Christian is on a mission in all their activities

71. Christians are at the service of their brothers and sisters in every aspect of their work and their lives. Love put into practice appeals to all Christians in their daily work, and in their personal initiatives. The commitment of Christians, like their humanitarian and charitable work, stems from the same call to mission.

In their paid work and in their unpaid voluntary work, or working at home, which is often heavy, men and women are called to live the same mission, to manifest the Good News and serve it through their daily sufferings and joys and in every situation. The quality of their work, taking part in just reforms, behaving modestly, showing that concern for others which is always present regardless of personal and lawful institutional objectives — all this is the daily lot of men and women seeking an opportunity, in every aspect of their lives, to allow God to draw close to them and to make the world grow large in divine love. They will then be increasingly better able to combat confusion and injustice, and offer up their sufferings and their joys to Christ the Saviour who gives them his spirit in their daily lives.

Christians will seek to link their work, whatever it is, to the One who speaks directly to our hearts, through the mouths of all the poor. Christians who are leaders of all men and women of goodwill, with whom they share fundamental human values, must ensure that their personal work and that of their fellow Christians is inspired by the Word of God and anchored in the Divine Life, in union with the Church and her pastors. The community in action must be a community working with the Lord, who will ensure that this work is planned and implemented in the Holy Spirit, and thereby ensure that it preserves its quality as a mission of divine essence in which the Servant of Man is sought personally as the source, the strength and the end of the work itself.

Christians will find support at all times in the prayer of our Blessed Lady, praying and acting in one and the same movement of unreserved service to God and to humanity. The Mother of God will intercede with the Holy Spirit to flood the minds and hearts of all Christians, thereby making them responsible and trusting, cooperating freely in an undertaking that will bear witness by itself to the Love of God, and which will have the weight of eternity.

Vatican City, Palazzo San Calisto, 4 October 1996, Feast of St. Francis of Assisi.

Archbishop Paul Josef Cordes
President
Pontifical Council "Cor Unum"

Msgr. Ivan Marin

Secretary
Pontifical Council "Cor Unum"