Abstract
This missionary mandate touches us personally: I am a mission, always; you are a mission, always; every baptized man and woman is a mission. People in love never stand still: they are drawn out of themselves; they are attracted and attract others in turn; they give themselves to others and build relationships that are life-giving. (Francis, 2019)
This issue of the Linacre is dedicated to medicine in mission. The articles it contains cover personal witness and encounter as well as theology and history. They all attempt to answer the questions: What is meant by mission? More importantly, what is meant when Pope Francis calls us to be a mission? What are missionary disciples?
Some skeptics think of mission as going out to the convert heathen people to Christianity and His Church for political gain. To go to foreign lands
Ellen Dailor and I have been privileged to serve alongside long-term missionaries and local Christians as short-term missionaries, can attest to a much richer reality. Both white martyrdom and red martyrdom continue to seed the Church, but the understanding of mission has also continued to grow. Thanks to the seeds planted by missionaries, the rich cultures of Africa now send missionaries within Africa and around the world-hundreds of African priests serve in U.S. parishes and bring Christianity to us.
Through a sister-parish program, I work in a village in northern Uganda called Padibe. Uganda has been called the Pearl of Africa since pearls are the only gem that are grown within a living organism and Uganda is the gem of the living Africa. It has 45 tribes with many different languages. The people of Padibe are of the Acoli tribe that is still recovering from the effect of a civil war with the Lord’s Resistance Army against government forces. They suffered abuses and atrocities from both sides. Over two million people were displaced and placed in refugee camps. Since the war officially ended in 2008, they have struggled to regain their culture and recover from the physical, economic, and psychologic damage of war. Yet the Acoli are a welcoming people. My deacon husband and I have been adopted into the tribe, given tribal names (mine is Adyero for “the one who offers herself”), and presented with clothes to help us fit in. Because I am a family physician, my job has been to work with the staff and teach. I even assisted once with a difficult delivery. Somewhere in Padibe is a little girl named Cindy.
So what does it mean to be a medical missionary? It means being with the people, learning from them as they learn from you. It is recognizing the good that each culture offers while acknowledging the failures. It is being witness, being Christ to others while seeing Christ in others. Ultimately, it is working within our vocation as health care professionals to share the love of Christ and support the spread of the Gospel. St. Pope John Paul II in Redemtoris Missio (1990) talked about mission as witness, reminding us that people trust actions more than theories. Jesus is our ultimate witness.
What does it mean to be a mission? It means first being open to the calling. We as missionaries must discern what God is calling us to do and respond positively to that call. It may be to go to foreign lands or stay where we are currently “planted.” It can be financial support or more. It always means prayer and self-giving; it means not only giving but also receiving. Giving generously can be difficult, but it is even harder to be humble enough to accept what is given. Sometimes it is being fed by people who have so little (and in Uganda one must eat so as not to embarrass the food—even if it means eating three lunches!–or else getting a chicken which can be a month’s wages). It can mean learning enough of the local language to have simple conversations and do the readings at Mass, learning the dances, and singing the songs.
We all can learn from each other. In Uganda, the medical officers are the experts in malaria and HIV. Missionaries can help them with their infrastructure and how to work within their resources. With the help of the Knights of Columbus and her local guild, I raised money so they can have a portable ultrasound and train one of the midwives to use it. I am raising money for an incinerator that the government requires so that they no longer burn their medical waste in the open, as well as other needs. Saints Peter and Paul Clinic’s reputation is such that people go there instead of the government clinic
As physicians and healthcare professionals, the Church tells us that we are to be ministers of life and guardians of human dignity. What makes our care different from secular care, as we are reminded by the Pontifical Council for Pastoral Assistance, is that we are not just providing service to the sick and suffering, we are providing Christian witness. We are in service to life, a living sign of Christ and his Church. It is our vocation, our mission. Being a mission, then, is not only going to exotic places. We must be a mission wherever we are. Remptoris Missio states we are to evangelize not only those who have never known Jesus but also to provide pastoral care within our churches and to reach out to where Christianity has been lost. (John Paul II, 1990) We are to be the Christ that we know He is. It is a special spirituality that is led by the Spirit, living the Mystery of Christ who sends us, which leads us to love the Church and humanity. It means that sometimes we must step out of our comfort zone.
There are various ways of considering missions, and in this issue of the Linacre, there are several of them. As Christians in modern medicine, we tend to think of medical missions as a way to reach those in need with medical care and the love of Christ in the Gospel message. This can be in solidarity with people overseas, where poverty can be shocking and heartbreaking, or with people in our cities and rural areas, where a different kind of poverty can leave people underserved and in great need (and is also heartbreaking). After some disciples objected to the woman anointing Jesus with the jar of expensive ointment, he said, “For you always have the poor with you, and whenever you will, you can do good to them, but you will not always have me.” (Mark 14:7b) This has on occasion been used as a reason not to do good to the poor as if it were a hopeless task. But Jesus does not mean this at all; rather, we are to do one without neglecting the other.
In 2015, the Lancet Commission on Global Surgery estimated that there are five billion people in the world with inadequate access to emergency and essential surgery and obstetrical care (Meara, Leather, Hagander, et al., 2015). Similarly, if there are about 1.3 billion Catholics, and one billion non-Catholic Christians, this leaves approximately five billion people without knowledge of our Lord Jesus and His saving grace. Although most of these people are in other countries and cultures, many of them are in our own neighborhoods. The flip side of meeting the needs of others is what we receive by offering service, whether caring for the sick in the American health system or outside of it.
The key to missionary discipleship, as will be found throughout this issue, is saying an unreserved “Yes” to whatever God is calling us to for the short or long term. It is easy to come up with reasons, excuses, or boundaries on how we will respond to the call of God on our lives, but it is necessary to recognize that He will equip us for whatever He call us to do. Whatever responsibilities or desires we perceive that we have, our true mission is to “know love and serve Him in this life so that we can live happily forever with Him in the next.”
We would like to draw your attention to the article by Fr. Herald Joseph Brock, CFR, “From the Heart of the Father to the Ends of the Earth: The Participation of the Church and the Baptized in the Mission of Jesus.” Fr. Brock begins by examining the mission identity of the second person of the Trinity, the Son sent by the Father, reflecting on mission as having its origin in the inner life of God. He walks us through the understanding of mission and evangelization since the Second Vatican Council by examining the relevant magisterial documents, reminding us that the Church is “missionary by her very nature.” Following this, he emphasizes the role of witness, pilgrimage, and conversion, and concludes by looking at our role as baptized individuals in the Spirit and the role of modern medical missions in the mission of Jesus. It is not an easy or a short read, but perseverance is well worth the effort. We are called always to holiness, and the reward of being part of the triumphal procession returning with Christ to His Father’s house is very great and one to share (Brock, 2021).
Likewise, Fr. James McTavish, using the new charter for healthcare workers, analyzes the meaning of mission and considers various excuses offered by the prophets and missionaries of the Bible. He considers the nature and spirituality of mission, noting that Pope St. John Paul II, in Redemptoris Missio, said that “the mission (of Christ the Redeemer, which is entrusted to the Church) is still only beginning and that we must commit ourselves wholeheartedly to its service.” Here he reminds us how to perform our daily tasks in the spirit of mission. He then looks at possible mission fields for us to consider, some of which are an unusual vision of mission fields, but very relevant in our time and culture. Fr. McTavish calls us each to provide “light not only to the world, but to your world, because no one else can do that” (McTavish, 2021).
Other papers look at more detailed aspects of health missions in the Catholic setting. While there are many publications on this topic in the non-Catholic Christian literature, this level of contribution regarding Catholic missions is needed
Being a mission, then, is not always about going to distant places, although we must carefully listen for this call. It most often means to be a mission in our home communities. As Pope Francis says, “we are a mission to the world, the fruit of God’s love because people in love never stand still” (Francis, 2019). To be a missionary is to have a special spirituality of living the Beatitudes to experience and show the presence of the kingdom of God amidst humanity (John Paul II 1990, 91) in all its brokenness. We are called to be the Good Samaritan caring for those left by the wayside. We are to see Christ in our patients, in the “least of these,” as Jesus (shockingly) says to the sheep and goats. Sometimes, we will be like Jesus on the road to Emmaus, accompanying people who are going the wrong way. We bring Christ to the suffering, following St. Teresa of Kolkata. This requires continuous conversion of ourselves in order to offer Christ to others through our words and actions. Jesus commands us all to be missionaries.
Guest Coordinators for this issue