By Father Paul Kam Po-wai
After three years of the pandemic, the Church resumed its normal routine in March this year. We cannot describe how exciting, joyful, overwhelmed, and resurrected the lay people felt during the Church’s most solemn annual Holy Week, especially the Easter Triduum.
I am really thankful to witness the baptismal candidates receive God’s grace publicly and solemnly in the sacraments of initiation (Baptism, Confirmation, Eucharist) and become formally Christians and children of God. It was also moving to see pictures of Holy Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Easter Sunday from various parishes and parishioners uploaded to Facebook. For many people, I believe this Easter is more profound and moving than in the past.
What message does all this intensity and emotion bring to us? Has our relationship with the Lord deepened? When we sang the hymn about the joy of receiving the baptism with strong feelings, did it rekindle the spirit of our mission?
“Sisi wote ni wamisionari” is one of the Swahili expressions I learned as a missionary in Tanzania, Africa, and it means “we are all missionaries”. It is a reminder that every Christian is a missionary, as another expression says, “Kuitwa ni kutumwa”, meaning “being called is being commissioned.”
The Gospel of Mark says, “He appointed twelve [whom he also named apostles] that they might be with him and he might send them forth to preach” (Mark 3:14). Jesus called us for two very important purposes, firstly to be with Him always and secondly to send us to preach and bear witness.
This Easter, more than 1,700 people were baptised in our diocese. As we witness their sacraments of initiation, celebrate with them and give thanks for them, do we have the idea that “we are all missionaries”? Let us encourage each other, and let this feeling of gratitude and emotion for the celebration of Easter be a motivation for our love of God and our missionary zeal to work in synodality with the whole Church and live our parish life with all the newly baptised as a community.
Let’s deepen our relationship with the Lord through regular gatherings, thanksgiving services, prayers, listening to the Word and sharing, and actively responding to His call and the invitation to evangelise and bear witness in our lives. Let us remember that our Church is an “outreaching Church”, and let us go out and spread love, follow Christ and bear witness. Let us not only “do the work of evangelisation” but also “fulfil the mission of evangelisation” and “live out the life of evangelisation”, because we are all missionaries, and we are all called and commissioned.
