An effective Missionary must be able to demonstrate the Catholic faith in love.

An important physical characteristic all human beings possess is the ability to communicate whether through sound, silence, or physical gesture. The nature of our human ability to express ourselves to someone or about something involves I argue an explanation of the message conveyed and a demonstration of how the message is to be lived. This formula of communication reflects the relationship between the act of Mission which can be defined as the intent to express and reveal the love of Jesus Christ and His Church to those who have not heard or been exposed to this message, e.g., the Gospel; and the Rule of Faith which may be described as the demonstration of how to live the Creed and explain how the Church teaches in the name of Jesus Christ.

The great Doctor of the Church, St. Francis De Sales placed great emphasis on expressing the communal identity and relationship of Mission and the Rule of Faith. Both elements base their identity on the Word of God and the theological virtue of love. Another element important to the act of Mission and the Rule of Faith for St. Francis De Sales was actively demonstrating the virtue of Love. The relationship between mission and creed was the formula St. Francis De Sales revealed to anyone he encountered meaning his Christian humanism was at the forefront of every human encounter.

A Christian humanism rooted in the love of God was central to St. Francis’ missionary mandate. It became an important aspect of his missionary identity when confronted with spiritual hostility that devalued the dignity of the human person throughout his travels as Bishop of Geneva. Vital to De Sales’ missionary mandate was a reassertion of a Christo-centric mindset and way of living rooted in love. Emphasizing a Christ-centered approach to any missionary mandate is important for understanding our relationship with the Paschal Mystery which is the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ. An effective missionary I argue is someone who willingly demonstrates the reality of the Paschal Mystery and why Jesus Christ, the Son of God came into this world to suffer and willingly die to prevent us from falling into the depths of sin, despair, and loss of hope. 

By our baptism, all of us receive the missionary mandate to walk a communal path with Christ nourished and strengthened through the sacramental life and associated with a holy fear of God. Not a fear of immediate direct retribution for our sins but a genuine fear of being absent from God’s love due to our sins. These prescripts allow us to possess a calm demeanor associated with a firm disposition to love those around us. A powerful charism attributed to St. Francis De Sales was his interior gentleness visible to anyone he encountered. Hence, any form of human action or experience rooted in Christian love is what I call the first instance of authentic Christian witness enacted by a missionary. What is important to stress here is the value of day-to-day living that mirrors the actions of Christ as revealed in the Gospels.

As St. Francis De Sales was consumed with bringing the lost back to the house of the Lord, our own missionary mandate should reflect the same zealous intention. This requires our availability to those we meet and engage in a path of conversion toward Christ. An effective missionary presents the divine plan of salvation and makes a concerted effort to engage the world through a Catholic ethos that is demonstratively clear of what the message of Jesus Christ is, the salvation of all through the renunciation of sin. Guided not by self-interests but instead through the Holy Spirit, an effective missionary embraces a mandate to bear the suffering of the Cross in his own life in the name of Jesus Christ for the salvation of souls. The Catechism of the Catholic Church reaffirms this position by providing us with a clear explanation of what our missionary mandate looks like,  

Having been divinely sent to the nations that she might be ‘the universal sacrament of salvation,’ the Church, in obedience to the command of her founder and because it is demanded by her own essential universality, strives to preach the Gospel to all men:^[1]

The Catechism then proceeds to remind us why God calls us to this act of faith because of His desire for all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. Salvation is found in truth.[2] The culmination of this entire missionary process relies on our willingness to be docile to the Holy Spirit who as the Catechism describes is the protagonist, the principal agent of the whole of the Church’s mission.[3] The demonstration of the Catholic faith is a process that involves an authentic expression of love and a clear articulation and demonstration of the Rule of Faith also identified as the Creed. With the Catechism of the Catholic Church serving as a depository of God’s love revealed through his Word, it is the task of the missionary to provide doctrinal substance and relevance to the message of the Gospel.

In describing the importance of holy perseverance in God’s love, St. Francis De Sales provides us with a fitting and lasting explanation of our role as missionaries, our responsibility to demonstrate the symphony of grace of the Catholic faith, and the perseverance required to do so,

But in any case, perseverance is the most desirable gift we can hope for in this life, and the one which, as the Council of Trent says, we cannot have but from the hand of God, who alone can assure him that sands and help him up that falls: wherefore we must incessantly demand it, making use of the means which Our Savior has taught us to the obtaining of it; prayer, fasting, alms-deeds, frequenting the sacraments, intercourse with the good, the hearing and reading of holy words.[4]  

St. Francis De Sales, Pray for Us!