ecades
ago, when a Spanish missionary re-entered Papua, an island of New Guinea in the
South Pacific, it has not seen a priest for 150 years.
The local inhabitants, numbering around 250 people, were all Catholics,
descendants of natives evangelized in the 19th century.
They told the missionary that every seven days they would meet for
worship, to baptize their children, and to pray the Rosary of Our Lady. In the absence of a priest, Mary through her Rosary had kept
them faithful.
Something similar was found to have happened also in Nagasaki, Japan, where Christians “hidden” for many decades because of persistent persecutions, persevered in the faith preached to them by St. Francis Xavier and the missionaries immediately following him. Devotion to Mary had been the means and sign of their fidelity.
Mary continued her role as first missionary of the Church.
“That the Virgin Mary, Mother of the Savior, may protect and sustain missionaries in their apostolic work,” prayed Pope John Paul II recently. It is a call to missionaries and to all Christians to invoke with ardor and trust the help of Mary, Mother of Jesus, for all those who continue the mission of her Son, in which she was the first to be involved in a unique and exemplary way. The Pope’s words echoed those of the Vatican Council II that “through the intercession of the Virgin Mary, Queen of the Apostles, the nations may be led to the knowledge of the truth as soon as possible.” (AG 42)
Indeed, Mary who on the morning of Pentecost watched over with her prayer the beginning of evangelization, prompted by the Holy Spirit, is “the first to be evangelized and the first to evangelize,” says again John Paul II. And though today, evangelization is still difficult, it is full of hope and follows in the footsteps of Mary.
Mary carried out her mission firstly during the earthly life of Jesus “of whom she is mother and disciple.” Then there is her mission with regard to the Apostles and the apostolic Church, from Cana to the Cenacle and beyond, “a unique witness to the mystery of Jesus.” Her presence and mission continues from heaven after her assumption.
For
good reasons, then, the path of missionaries and mission has a loving
relationship with Mary as the one who is model as well as help and protection.
And missionaries constantly testify to that.
“The missionary’s vocation blossoms at the feet of Mary.
The departure, following the consigning of the Crucifix, comes after
homage to the Blessed Virgin at a shrine or in front of an icon.
The missionary’s activity is accompanied by persevering and confident
prayer to the Queen of the Apostles asking her guidance and protection.
The missionary method gives a special place to Mary who, still today,
through the working of the Spirit, prepares the way for Jesus, sustains and
renders persevering those who announce the Gospel as well as those who receive
it. Evangelization of
non-Christians is also a school of profound devotion to the Mother of Christ. Proof of this are the numerous shrines in missionary lands
constantly visited by Christians as well as followers of other religions.”
(John Paul II, Nov. 2, 2000)
Urgent and grave are the missionaries’ needs for the work of evangelization. Mission’s horizons are broad, the ways it is called to travel are many and diverse, and so are the obstacles. But missionary activity must always tend to the proclamation of the mystery of Christ, one and only Savior. This proclamation which declares the human and divine dignity of every human being, may, especially today, in lands of totalitarian and undemocratic regimes, seem, and in fact be, subversive of the status quo Mary’s words are loud and clear. The message of her Magnificat is so subversive indeed that for a period during the 1980’s the government of Guatemala banned its public recitation, a sanction that no doubt Christians everywhere in the country violated daily!
Mary’s
love and pity for her children seems to be what people treasure most about her
and what helps her to serve as a bridge between cultures.
One great example of this took place in 1531, when the Virgin Mary
appeared to an Indian peasant named Juan Diego on the mountain of Tepayac, in
Mexico, leaving behind a cloak, a tilma, imprinted with her image. The
image has been immortalized as Our Lady of Guadalupe, where Mary appears as a
person of mixed race, a symbol of the union of indigenous Aztec and Spanish
invader. What was, and still is,
the scandal of miscegenation was given a holy face and name.
It sounds so suspiciously biblical, recalling the scandal of the
Incarnation itself, the mixing together of human and divine in a young unmarried
woman. Six years after 1531, nine
millions of Mexican Indians had embraced the Christian faith. “The faith that Europe imposed in the 16 century was, by
virtue of the Guadalupe, embraced by the Indians.
Catholicism has become an Indian religion. By the 21st century, the locus of the Catholic
Church, by virtue of numbers, will be Latin America, by which time Catholicism
itself will have assumed the aspect of the Virgin of Guadalupe.
Brown skin.” (R. Rodrigues, in Goddess of the Americas; Writings on the
Virgin of Guadalupe)
All this requires a rediscovery of the missionary role and spirit of Mary, who gave the Savior to the World and wishes to continue to do so. To missionaries Mary can give the enlightenment and courage to respond effectively to the needs and challenges of mission in our day. This is why John Paul II concludes his missionary encyclical by entrusting to the Blessed Virgin the whole Church and “in particular those who commit themselves to carrying out the missionary mandate in today’s world.”
(From Xaverian Mission Newsletter)