Editorial…
The word mission derived from the Latin word
mittere, means a sending.
Theologically, ‘divine mission’ means the
Son is sent by God the Father and the Holy
Spirit is sent by both the Father and the
Son. When Jesus Christ, the Son of God and
the redeemer of mankind, had fulfilled his
divine mission in the world, had sealed it
with his death and endorsed it by his
resurrection, he empowered his apostles and
through them his Church to continue the same
in his name and by his authority. The Acts
of the Apostles, as the first mission
history, sketches the early mission and the
organization of the primitive Church. This
first mission activity shows that the early
mission force was by no means limited to the
Apostles. Rather, the whole Christian
community was collectively involved. Men and
women, soldiers and sailors, merchants and
travelers, even philosophers all spread the
Gospel message as a personal commitment
wherever they lived or in case of
persecution, wherever they died.
Mindful of the last will and testament of
Christ, the Church has always looked upon
missionary work as an essential and solemn
obligation, and upon its progress as an
unfailing gauge of her vitality. Since the
day of Pentecost, when she received her
baptism by the Holy Spirit, the Church has
mindfully carried on this apostolate in the
midst of constant persecution, unfavorable
political conditions and even anti-Christian
legislation. Hence, the Church today is not
only One, Holy and Apostolic, but also
Catholic in the sense that she is called to
embrace all humankind and all peoples of
every time and place, of every language and
religion. “The Church is missionary by her
very nature”, John Paul II wrote in his
Encyclical Redemptoris Missio, “for
Christ’s mandate is not something contingent
or external, but reaches the very heart of
the Church. It follows that the universal
Church and each individual Church is sent
forth to the nations. It is highly
appropriate that young Churches should share
as soon as possible in the universal
missionary work of the Church. They should
themselves send missionaries to proclaim the
Gospel all over the world, even though they
are suffering from a shortage of clergy”.
(n. 62). Therefore, as has often been said,
missionary commitment remains the first
service that the Church owes to humanity
today to guide and evangelize the cultural,
social and ethical transformations of
mankind. However, much still remains to be
done in order to respond to the missionary
call which the Lord never tires of
addressing to every one of the baptized. In
the demanding work of evangelization we are
sustained and accompanied by the certainty
that he, the Lord of the harvest, is with us
and continues to guide his people. Christ is
the inexhaustible source of the Church’s
mission.
The dynamism of divine life was first
communicated in the Incarnation of the
eternal Son of God, sent by the Father to
bring mankind revelation and salvation. The
coming into the world of the Word made flesh
(cf. Jn 1:14) can be considered a "type" or
"archetype"--as the Fathers would say--of
the Church's missionary drive. Going beyond
the frontiers of ancient Israel, it extends
the kingdom of heaven to all humanity. This
drive is carried out in particular by the
"leap" of missionaries, who, like the
apostles, leave their native countries to
proclaim the divine message to "all nations"
(Mt 28:18).
The first missionary, the only begotten Son
sent on earth by the Father to redeem the
world, sends the apostles out to continue
his mission (cf. Jn 20:21). The missionary
typology of the "Word made flesh" also
includes the self-emptying of the one who
exists in the form of God and who assumed
the form of a servant, becoming like men
(cf. Phil 2:6-7). The Pauline concept of
"kenosis" allows us to see in the
Incarnation the first example of the
self-emptying of those who accept Christ's
mandate and leave everything to bring the
Good News "to the very ends of the earth."
The Second Vatican Council notes this in the
Decree Ad Gentes, according to which,
"The pilgrim Church is missionary by her
very nature, since it is from the mission of
the Son and the mission of the Holy Spirit
that she draws her origin, in accordance
with the decree of God the Father" (AG 2).
It is a mystery established by the divine
Trinitarian plan which is fulfilled in the
Church and made manifest as permanently her
own, since the day of Pentecost.
After the apostles had taken the message of
salvation first to Israel and then
throughout the Roman empire, Western Europe
was evangelized part by part and then
co-operated in the evangelization of Eastern
Europe as well as parts of Africa and Asia.
The Benedictines pioneered the
evangelization of Germany and England and
later the Mendicant Orders undertook
missionary journeys as far as India and
Eastern Asia.
In the 14th and 15th
centuries considering that Spain and
Portugal were extending their domains
overseas, the Holy See delegated its task of
evangelization to the crowns of Spain and
Portugal through what came to be known as
the rights of patronage – the Padroado.
Portugal did a good deed of evangelization
in the 16th century at the
heights of its colonial achievements. Later
however, the Padroado privileges became an
impediment to the work of evangelization
when Portugal sought to retain the
privileges but failed to fulfill the
obligations attached to them. This period
coincided with the breaking up of
Christendom in Europe by the Lutherans,
Calvinists, Anglicans and others. France,
England, Denmark, Holland became rivals of
Spain and Portugal in the mastery of the
seas and the threat to their supremacy in
the East as well as in the West. The 16th
and 17th centuries saw also the
reform of the Catholic Church ushered in by
the Council of Trent along with which some
of the ancient Orders such as Dominicans,
Franciscans, Carmelites were reformed and
new Orders such as the Jesuits saw the light
of the day.
One of the ancient Orders that was reformed
with a strong missionary thrust injected
into it was that of the Discalced Carmelites
reformed by St. Teresa of Jesus of Avila
with deep and far reaching missionary
aspirations. Some of the sons of St. Teresa
were among those who urgently reminded the
Holy See of its missionary obligations and
of the need of a centralized apostolic
agency for the expansion of the Church. One
of the these great sons of St. Teresa was
Fr. Gracian of the Mother of God who
personally met Pope Clement VIII and
convinced him of the need of founding such
an agency directly under the supervision of
the Holy See. Other great Carmelites were
Fr. Thomas of Jesus, Fr. Ferdinand of St.
Mary and others. Pope Clement VIII himself
dispatched a group of Christian missionaries
from Rome to Persia in 1604, even before
after several attempts the Congregation of
the Propagation of Faith was finally
established in 1622.
The Congregation of the Propagation used the
services particularly of religious
congregations for the fulfillment of its
obligations of announcing Christ to the
world. Portuguese, Franciscans, Dominicans,
Augustinians and Jesuits had already reached
many costal areas of India and East Asia.
St. Francis Xavier had arrived in the
Portuguese colonies in Asia in 1542 and
after hectic missionary journeys from Goa to
Cochin and beyond India to the East had
yielded his soul to God in 1552 off the
coast of China. Great Jesuit missionaries
like Matthew Ricci in China and Robert de
Nobili in Madura had attempted proclaiming
the Gospel message through inculturation.
Meanwhile, Spanish religious had been
proclaiming the good news in the world
discovered for Spain by Christopher Columbus
in 1492. In 1991 South American Christianity
celebrated the 5th centenary of
the birth of Christianity in the Americans.
The occasion was marked by the 4th
National Mission Congress held at Lima in
Peru after 3 previous National Mission
Congresses held respectively in Mexico and
Columbia.
It is impossible to recount in a brief space
the mission adventures of individuals as
well as religious congregations in this
colossal enterprise of the conversion of the
nations. Each religious congregation no
doubt will have its own epic story of
missionaries and martyrs from many of the
Western European nations who have spent
themselves in attempting to implant the
church in far away regions across land and
sea.
The Church is essentially missionary and so
every Christian is a missionary. The
existence and growth of the church depends
on the mission that is carried out by its
faithful. The Jubilee year 200 called for
new way of being Church and from this grew
Pastoral Plan for every region in the
dioceses. To deliberate on the progress of
the missions, Mission congress took birth.
Mission Congress is nothing but coming
together in the name of the Risen Lord for
the celebration of faith and life. The first
mission congress took place on the mountain
at Galilee, where the Risen Lord called the
11 together for a definite goal.
The late Pope John Paul II had expressed his
wish that there should be a Mission Congress
in each of the continents every 5 years. He
had already turned his attention to the
evangelization of Asia when he issued his
Encyclical Ecclesia in Asia.
Subsequently the First Asian Mission
Congress was held at Chiang Mai, Thailand in
October 2006. The theme of the Congress was
“Telling the story of Jesus in our life, in
the cultures of Asia and among peoples of
different faiths”.
Following suite, the Order of Discalced
Carmelites recalling how much its mother St.
Teresa of Jesus (Avila) had cherished the
missionary spirit and how its Order had
worked for the foundation of the
Congregation which is now known as
Congregation of Evangelization of Peoples
decided to have an International Congress
for Asia and Oceania on Asian soil. The
venue of the Congress held from 24-28
September 2007 was Ryshivana, a beautiful
spot in the vicinity of Mangalore close to
where the river Netravati enters the Arabian
Sea. The 35 participants included all major
superiors from the two above mentioned
continents, besides superiors of various
missions in the region and masters of
theology students.
Fr. Luis Arostogui Gamboa, the Superior
General presided over the sessions and in
his key-note address reminded those gathered
in the words of the Carmelite Fr. Juan
Vincente, that action without
contemplation would not be Carmelite and
contemplation without action would not be
Teresian. Hence the missions are an
integral part of a Carmelite vocation. Fr.
Damaso Zuazua, the General Secretary for the
missions, spelt out the aims and objectives
of the congress, and urged the assembly to
gear towards some practical guidelines that
could be implemented in the various
circumscriptions as a fruit of the
deliberations. Frs. Xavier Jayaraj and
Angelo Madelo, the two Definitors General,
in-charge respectively of the Carmelite
units in the two continents, were also
present.
On the 2nd day V. Rev. Dr.
Aloysius Paul D’Souza, Bishop of Mangalore
celebrated the Eucharist and addresses the
gathering. We recall with great pleasure
that the first three Vicars Apostolic of
Mangalore from 1845 – 1873 were sons of St.
Teresa.
The resource persons were Carmelites Fr.
Paul D’Souza of the Karnataka-Goa Province
and Fr. Dominic Fernandez de Mendiola
(Navarra, Spain, and former rector of Alwaye
Seminary, Kerala), who presented papers on “Unforgettable
Carmelite missionaries on the Asian soil
from the sixteenth to twentieth century”
and ‘Main characterisitics of the
missionary activity of the past in Asia’,
respectively. Fr. Paul deals with some of
the most eminent missionaries on Asian Soil
– Iran, Israel, India, Philippines, Japan,
Indonesia, Korea, China, Singapore – from
the 16th to 20th
century. Fr. Dominic Fernandez de Mendiola
whose health prevented him from being
present had his paper read by one of the
participants. He describes the main
characteristics, methods and trends
introduced and followed by the Carmelites in
Asia particularly in Kerala where he spent
many years as Rector and Professor of the
Seminary.
Fr. Michael Amaladoss SJ (Institute of
dialogue with cultures and religions,
Chennai) spoke on inter-religious dialogue
and ecumenism. He pointed out particularly
three paradigm shifts in dialogal approach.
The first shift is from dialogue as a
preparation for mission to dialogue itself
as mission with an objective proper to it.
Religion is a socio-political reality.
Hence, inter-religious dialogue today has to
move from a strictly religious level to a
socio-political level which involves
religion. This indicates the second shift.
In a situation of conflict, as we are
experiencing at present, inter-religious
dialogue, promoting peace, will have to
start as negotiation leading to
conflict-resolution and reconciliation
before going on to conversation,
collaboration at the socio-political level
and dialogue at the religious level and this
is the third shift.
Fr. Felix Wilfred (Head of Department of
Christianity, Madras University) shared his
reflections on the document ‘Ecclesia
in Asia
and the challenges of mission today’. After
mentioning that his native region had been
evangelized by Carmelites, he presented
substantial reflections on the recent Post
Synodal Apostolic Exhortation
Ecclesia in Asia.
He made a running commentary on the document
chapter by chapter and raised a few
questions that would be relevant for
progress in the task of evangelization.
Apart from the talks, many of the
participants were invited to give an account
of what Carmelites were doing in their
respective regions. These regional accounts
were followed by question-answer sessions,
which were enriching and enlightening.
Finally the Order renewed its commitment to
further the evangelization of Asia in the
best possible manner for the service of the
Church and the salvation of the nations.
Rev. (Dr.) Dominic Vas, OCD
Provincial Superior
Discalced Carmelites
Karnataka – Goa Province
+
FAX ++39 06 85443212 
