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Theological reflections on the mission “today”

José Cristo Rey García Paredes cmf

Professor of Theology of Religious Life Theological Institute of Religious Life – UPSA

cmfxr@hotmail.com

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This article aims to contribute something worthwhile to the focus on the theme of "mission". The Church has travelled along a very interesting road in the almost fifty years since the beginning of the Second Vatican Council, up to today. In this period there has been a major shift in the understanding of the mission of the Church, I would say a paradigm shift. The mission can be a touchstone for communion or division within the Church. Let us focus our attention on the “mission”. Let us take heed what “mission” means for us. To do that, there will be three parts to this reflection: *On the huge number of meanings of the word “mission” *The “missio Dei” above all, and what it implies *The mission of the church: the subject and its manner I. THE WELTER OF MEANINGS OF “MISSION”. In principle, it seems that everyone agrees on what "mission" means and on its centrality. However, behind the word there are different and even contradictory ways of understanding it. This generates significant disagreements and tensions amongst us. 1. The various meanings in contention. This is not unusual within a religious Institute or within the Christian community itself. I will give some examples:

* There are people for whom the mission is, above all, hierarchical: it consists of being sent and being given an assignment, which comes from a leader or a management group: it is usually expressed as follows: "where my superiors send me", "sent by the community." *Other people understand the mission on a socio-political and revolutionary level: it consists of the action of being sent and being given an assignment that comes from the exigencies of helping the poor, the excluded, those who do not have justice: it is often expressed like this: "mission as an option on behalf of the poor and their liberation." *There are people who understand the mission, above all, at the religious and denominational level: expanding religion, faith, conveying their doctrine, inviting others to join the community of believers, creating communities. The mission is described using adjectives like "religious", "evangelical", "sacramental", "liturgical," "spiritual." *Others understand mission at a charismatic level: to them the Church's mission is to promote renewal in the Spirit and healing through prayer and absolute

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confidence in the power of the Lord; for them the mission should be carried out spontaneously, without structure, guided by the reality that pertains at the time. *There are, finally, different ways of understanding the mission in terms of how it is done: "contra gentes", "ad gentes", "inter gentes", trans-. or there are those who believe that the key words are "pastoral mission".

The different ways of understanding the mission may be a cause of disagreements between congregations and churches. The mission should be a principle of unity, but conflicting views make it the principle of division.

2. How to understand the Mission from our Revelation The mission does not, nor should consist of content that each of us, according to his own vision, attributes to it. Above all, we must adhere to the meaning of the word in order not to distort it: and the word "missio", "missus" properly refers to that "task that an individual accomplishes by the mandate or assignment from another person." Only in an inappropriate sense can we talk about the mission that one discovers for oneself and in which it is the self who is the sender and the one who is sent. The mission concept itself implies obedience, dependence on another person.

"Mission" in the Christian, theological sense, is one that comes from God; it is the task which God entrusts to humans. It is God who gives it content, who determines its nature. The result of this simple principle is that the mission must always respond to "the will of God”, to his plan, not to our own independent will, without reference to his.

“Mission" in the Christian, theological sense, is one that responds to God’s will and plan in a given time and place. God's will is not disconnected from what happens in time and space. So, it is not enough just to interpret his will from Revelation (Scripture and Tradition), but we have to discover the signs of the times and places.

To recover the true concept of mission we have to, on the one hand, return to the sources of Revelation and, on the other hand, fix our gaze on the space and time in which we find ourselves.

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II. FIRST AND FOREMOST, “MISSIO DEI” The mission, as we understand it from Revelation and from our own faith is, first and foremost, “missio Dei”, which means, the mission that has God as the main player, the first mover (1).

1. The missionary Tri-unity Our Protestant brothers explicitly understood this before us. God has revealed himself to us as a "missionary" God, as a missionary Tri-unity. It is a unique phenomenon within the world of religions. Well we know it. The identity of Jesus consists of being "sent by the Father." He repeats it a thousand times in John’s Gospel, especially. The mission flows from the heart of God the Father who sent his Son into the world. Jesus is for us, at one and the same time, Son of God and the one sent by God. The letter to the Hebrews explicitly called Jesus the "Apostolos", ie the one who is sent. The life of Jesus, therefore, consisted of the deployment, development and completion of the mission he had received. Therefore, his only desire was to fulfill the will of Him who had sent him, to do his work, and not to do anything of his own accord. Jesus is the true paradigm of every mission. He did not have his own personal plan, but rather acted in a total state of dependency. When people are excited about the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and want to make him king, Jesus flees and shuts himself away in prayer to Abba, and the people, even his own disciples, abandon him and leave him alone praying on the mountain.

But Jesus’ mission came to an end: "It is finished." Good Friday is the last day and the end of the mission. But it is not the day that concludes the "missio Dei". Jesus promised His disciples: "I will not leave you orphans, I will send the Spirit who proceeds from the Father". Jesus' death opens the way to the Holy Spirit being sent. As Jesus ascended into heaven, and was standing at the right hand of God, he sat down to the right of the Father, and the Spirit was sent to us to stay with us forever. The Holy Spirit is on permanent mission. It is not an alternative to the mission of Jesus. It reminds us of that mission, which leads to fulfillment, which makes possible all that he began and all that he promised.

It has as the main subject the Triune God. He was the Son, Jesus, who was sent by the Father. He is the prototype of every mission. The fourth gospel interprets the life of Jesus as "mission" which comes from God the Father, and Jesus fulfills it in close accordance with his will. It is also the fourth Gospel that reveals how the mission of the Son continues, without any answer concerning its continuity, the mission of the Spirit. The New Testament confesses that Jesus ascended into heaven and is seated (e ˙ ka qisen) to the right of the Father (Heb 1.3). We are in the time of the "missio Spiritus." The Spirit brings Jesus to “mind”, carries forward the "missio Dei" and it is the soul, the great subject of the "missio ecclesiae”. Everybody who is part of the Church is called to participate in the mission of the Spirit, and becomes "epiphanic" in the charisms (HJ fane ÷ rwsiß Touvan pneu / matoß, defined by Paul in 1 Cor 12.7) that energize the church.

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The "missio Dei" is now fulfilled as "missio Spiritus" and is the key to understanding the mission of the Church, of humanity and of the world. It is the hinge on which everything turns, the core which sustains it. The mission of the Church, of the community of Jesus, is an extension of the mission of the Spirit. Through the church, as the body of Christ Jesus, the Spirit carries on the mission. To do so, it gives each and every person their own gift, so that means that all the charisms are recognized, valued and implemented. Moreover, the Holy Spirit does not restrict the number of his collaborators: he speaks through the prophets, both through Christian prophecy as well as through religious prophecy, and even through secular prophecy. He acts through so many human beings, without discrimination, who have received their gifts and put them, consciously or unconsciously, to his service. But the Spirit never acts on behalf of those who collaborate with him in a violent way. "Where the Spirit is, so too is freedom”. Hence, he applies no pressure and so it is very easy to "sadden the Spirit" in this game of freedoms in which we reject compliance and try to impose our own will. 2. When the main player on the mission is not the Spirit…. I have, therefore, the impression that both the "Missio Ecclesiae" as well as the "missio mundi" often take on undue prominence and go beyond the "missio Dei". Put another way, it is very easy to slip from dependence on God in the mission, to autonomy or independence; from seeking only God’s will and plan to imposing our own will and design. The God who has revealed himself to us is a creator of spaces of freedom, autonomy, and processes of self-management. This we call the law of nature, random processes or human freedom. The power of God shows in his ability to create freedom and in his humility to withdraw when human will demands it; we are able to sadden the Holy Spirit, as the letter to the Ephesians tells us. Therefore, where there is a covenant between God and man, the covenant can fail because of one of the parties. And the mission is an agreement for mutual cooperation! So I ask myself:

*Is the Spirit of God bound hand and foot? Is it confined within spaces that allow no entry? Is it hemmed in by constraints the world over? *In his own house, can he do what he wants, is he allowed to carry out his own plan, can he rely on helpful collaborators? Or does it amount to proposing one thing and dreaming of something else, so that he immediately encounters a "no" that blocks it and sends it into reverse?

All these questions come to mind when I think about the mission. It is uncommon to find people or groups with an explicit "mission mysticism" fully aware that they have been sent, not to do their will, but the will of Another. We easily and happily engage in mission and pastoral projects, and we get involved in a huge number of activities.

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But the bottom line is this: *Do we have our God to fall back on? Do we consult God? Do we carry out his plan (and I say this in an exaggerated way) under his command? *Or rather, do we simply ask at the end that he blesses "our" plans, or simply that "he helps us?”.

The issue is a very serious one. Either answer depends on whether we are "on

track" or "off-track," running purposefully or running in vain. The mission can become "idolatrous" in a trice: even though it bears the name of God, it can happen that after a certain time it is not God the Spirit who is in control.

I know that goodwill can make up for lack of knowledge, that one can be "in close partnership with God" but not always be aware of it. But it is a pity that, as disciples of Jesus, we forget that our most precious identity is "to be chosen and sent to evangelize" and for that we have been anointed by the Holy Spirit. We are not workers who have found work, or employees of a company who have fulfilled their contracts. We are the group that seeks the Lord and just wants to do his will, and fulfill the mission he entrusted to us. Being aware of this power illuminates our identity and our commitment.

Suppose, by chance, that suddenly we realized that some of the activity which is in the hands of the Church, and within each of our communities, movements or people, lies outside of the mission, that from being sent by God we have become autonomous. Suppose that workers are working, not in the harvest, but outside of it or have been sent to God’s vineyard and have committed themselves to another.

3. The mysterious will is called “missio Dei” How can someone know the will of the Lord if he hardly connects with Him, or does not do his work in "permanent obedience" or who does not passionately seek the signs of his will? But to this can be added another question: Who can dare say he knows the mysterious will of God?

The Lord's Prayer illuminates our concern. In it, Jesus exhorts us to cry, "Abba, thy will be done!", or in the same way "your will be done!” There are kind hosts, so kind in fact that they harass the guest trying to offer them the best of attention: "Take this .... sit here ... go there ... sleep until ... you don’t have to get up ..."; those who welcome guests into their homes, impose on them their own good will. Another thing would be to simply tell the guest, "this is your home, feel free to do as you please". This second attitude is shown in the petition of the Our Father. We invite our God to fulfill His will here on earth, as it is in heaven.

Jesus does not ask us to commit ourselves to do the will of God. He doesn’t even invite us to get to know the will of God. He only asks us to give him freedom of action so that he can carry out his will without restraint. Jesus asks us to perform an act of surrender, of absolute availability, to allow Abba to fulfill his will both in us

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and in the world. That "fiat voluntas tua" sounds like the creative act, but it depends on human freedom. The "fiat voluntas tua" can also be expressed as "fiat missio tuo!" "Let your mission be accomplished" The Lord's Prayer invites us to create spaces of goodwill where our God can fulfill his will. 4. To participate in the “missio Dei” requires an agreement of collaboration. The will of our God has a very clear direction: to carry forward the mission of His Son Jesus. And as the Son ascended into heaven and is seated on his right, he sent the Holy Spirit. Abba’s will is that the Holy Spirit continues and fulfills Jesus’ mission. For some time now, both the brothers and sisters of the Reformation (Reform??) and ourselves, have spoken about the "missio Dei”, the mission that has God as the main player. Along this same line, scholastic theology has spoken of "divine mission." The truth is that from the day of Pentecost the Spirit is on a mission, he has been sent by Abba and the Son is risen and is present and active throughout the world. He moves forward and carries out the mission of Jesus, as the Father is in heaven. The Father and the Son are present among us "in the Spirit."

But the mission of the Spirit is only accomplished through a huge amount of missionary collaboration. On the day of Pentecost the Spirit wanted to have the collaboration of all the people it descended upon and anointed. The Spirit puts a seal on us, marks us out for the mission and makes possible the arrival of the day of redemption. The Spirit never acts alone but mobilizes others and therefore, has thousands and thousands of collaborators. Through them he communicates. He uses a huge range of charisms to carry out the Son's mission, entrusted by the Father. The Spirit will never show his face, will never appear, but is in everything, being the main protagonist of the Mission, the great facilitator, the great unifier. "The mission is one" said the Second Vatican Council in the decree "Apostolicam Actuositatem", number 2. The mission is the mission of the Holy Spirit. The mission of the Church is born of the Spirit. The mission is the mother of each individual church, each congregation, each community. But, in the background, the Spirit acts through multiple ministries, services and charisms. That is the great pact of the mission!

In that magnificent mission covenant there are some tasks that we have to commit to. The General Synod of the Church of England in 1996 aptly summarized this missionary work under the following five headings: 1) Proclaim the Gospel of the Kingdom of God, 2) teach, baptize and nurture new believers in the Church, 3) respond to human needs by loving service, 4) seek to transform the unjust structures of society, 5) strive to safeguard the integrity of creation, and sustain and renew the life of planet earth.(2) 5. The mission is spirituality. I see spirituality as sensitivity, flexibility, porosity, obedience and resignation adopted freely and responsibly, in the presence and action of the Holy Spirit. Spirituality is to allow oneself to be moved, be carried, be enthused, be moved deeply, be inspired into activity. And it is then when the truth reveals something of

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the mysterious will of God, and is when our thoughts and plans evaporate before God's plans, as snow beneath the light and warmth of the sun.

We are not connected with the mission simply because something becomes fashionable, or because it has the applause of liberal-progressives. The prophets are working with the Spirit undergoing profound changes in their thinking, feeling and acting. The will of God is not simply something that has more votes or more consensus, nor even what appears to be set as a permanent "no" to what the majority want. Whoever seeks God's will and, above all, wants to be in tune with it, is not a fundamentalist who knows everything, nor even a skeptic who does not care at all: it is a mystical person who allows himself to be molded and led, who is not so concerned about being wrong provided that he is following the direction laid out by God.

Yes, the mission is spirituality. And spirituality is the mission. It is to live in the Spirit. To act from the Spirit. To be moved in the Spirit. The Spirit of "Fiat" that does the will of the Father. It is to be "contemplatives in the mission" and "missionaries in contemplation."(4)

I am absolutely convinced that at any time and in any place, the Holy Spirit, our Holy Ruah, acts, drives history, makes the Kingdom a present reality. But only the people moved by it have eyes to see, ears to hear, and hands to act.

Here is the reminder from the letter to the Ephesians: "Do not sadden the Holy Spirit of God which you were marked with for the day of redemption!" (Eph 4, 30).

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III THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH: “AD-GENTES”, “INTER-GENTES”, TRANS- The mission of the Church today needs to be rethought and that is what is happening. Wilbert R. Shenk dared to write 10 years ago that today there is a need for a "re-conceptualization of the theology of mission from two angles: from a formal point of view, the theology of mission is the effort to understand and interpret the "Missio Dei " in the light of Scripture, the experience of the Church in mission through the course of history, and the current socio-political context to guide the Church in carrying out its missionary vocation. However, it is not clear as to what the content of the mission is. We have to extract theology, as well as the mission, from Western captivity. Theology must be re-conceptualized in the light of a global, worldwide Christian faith. The Churches of Asia, Africa, Latin America are new mission stations. The mission is no longer Eurocentric but multi-centric.(5) There are some authors, especially Asian authors, who have thought about the mission (6)within new parameters. 1. “Missio ad gentes” – “missio pauperes” In the encyclical Redemptoris Missio (RM) John Paul II defines the “missio ad gentes” as the mission directed to the people or groups who don’t yet know Christ, who are distant from Him, or those whom the Church has not yet helped to establish their roots…. and those whose culture has not yet been touched by the Gospel”(RM 34). In other words, according to his definition, the “missio ad gentes” is directed towards non-Christians:

The special nature of this mission ad gentes is in the fact that it addresses the "non-Christians." Therefore, we must prevent this "mission specific way that Jesus entrusted and continues to daily entrust to His Church" from becoming a weak reality within the global mission of the People of God and therefore neglected or forgotten. Moreover, it is not easy to define the boundaries between pastoral care to the faithful, new evangelization and specific missionary activity, and it is unthinkable to create barriers or impregnable enclosures between them. However, it is necessary to keep alive the hunger for the message and the founding of new churches in villages and communities which do not yet exist, because this is the primary task of the Church, which has been sent to all peoples, even to the ends of the earth. Without the mission ad gentes, the same missionary dimension of the Church would be deprived of its essential meaning and its exemplary performance "(RM 34). In this model the proclamation of the Gospel takes precedence. Also in this model

the aspect of charity has been given due prominence. We might call it the "missio ad pauperes." The Mission ad gentes has been identified with the mission to the poorest countries, considered as mission countries. Here the proclamation of the Gospel has been closely linked with projects to help the poor, with solidarity, with their struggle for freedom. But the Church also appeared as the bearer of true humanity. The subject of this model of the mission is the whole Church, but from its

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basic roots, the people who gave generously of themselves and at times, quite separate from the hierarchy, they chose to help the poor.

This is a model rooted in a Church of Christianity, whose quest has been to make the whole of society into a Christian society. Therefore, it is a mission that strives to open a path towards the acceptance of Christianity by non-Christians. In this model of mission "ad gentes" testimony and dialogue are included, but what takes precedence is the explicit verbal proclamation of Jesus Christ.

2. The step towards the mission “inter gentes”. In contrast with the “ad” model, the federation of the conferences of bishops from Asia aims to transcend the model of "missio ad gentes" and establish the model of "missio inter gentes" to provide a more incarnate model, which is less deductive and less linear(7). It would encourage recognition of religious pluralism not as something that must be fought against and overcome, but as something that defines the picture or landscape of Asia; this does not imply the renunciation of the proclamation of the Gospel(8).

*The neologism "missio inter gentes" encapsulates the missionary strategy for the Asian bishops. With it they want to be disassociated from other, discredited ways of understanding the mission. The term "missio inter gentes" was first proposed by William R. Burrows. *We can say that the missionary vision preferred by the bishops of Asia is the "mission amongst nations" (missio inter gentes) with an emphasis on solidarity and harmony with the peoples of Asia, given its diverse and plural Sitz im Leben. The mission understood as someone being sent out is no longer useful, not only because (in the words of Donal Dorr) the phrase is closely linked to a model of the Church that is purely institutional, hierarchical, but also because it suggests that the mission is a one-way activity that ignores previous action of the Spirit of God in the world, in religion, in the secular world."(10) *The traditional expression "Missio ad gentes" focuses on the why, what and who: it justifies the need for mission and its struggle and is defined from the perspective of the missionaries who go in search of those who are not yet baptized. The term "missio inter gentes" focuses attention on how to perform the mission, which both presupposes and modifies our perception of the why, what and whom. *You can see the difference between the two models in the way it deals with religious pluralism. The approach to it in the mission ad gentes shows disrespect towards the religious sensibilities of people, imposing the European socio-cultural domain on the world political scene; it suggests that Europe and Rome are the centre of Truth and it needs to radiate outwards and be enforced throughout the world by groups such as missionary congregations and European missionaries. The mission ad gentes would want to put an end to religious pluralism, believing

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that only Christianity can meet all the aspirations of human beings. The "missio ad gentes" gives primacy to verbal proclamation as a vehicle for Christian mission; and especially the verbal and explicit proclamation of the uniqueness and exclusivity of Christ for the salvation of non-Christians. For many, Christianity is the white man's religion(11). *The issue of religious pluralism has to be seen as a reality that is part of the Asian landscape. The mission is not to be understood as confrontational but as a relationship and the building of relationships, as dialogue and consensus, harmony and solidarity. The aim is for the Christian gospel and the local churches to really immerse themselves in the realities of Asia and to commit themselves to a three-way dialogue concerning cultures, religions and the poor. In this dialogue it has to be recognized that there was a history of salvation in Asia before the arrival of Christianity. And that the Spirit is present and acts. Asia was not a “tabula rasa” before Christianity arrived. God revealed himself there, God worked there: "we must discern the hand of God in all these aspirations, movements and initiatives"(12) *From these premises, a strategy of mission can be formulated that is not addressed to the peoples of Asia, but rather amongst the peoples of Asia: in essence, it is an inter gentes mission. The only aspiration of the mission is neither self-interest nor the growth of the Church, but on behalf of the Kingdom of God, so that its values become visible to all people. There should be no intention to create a triumphant church in Asia, but a servant church, with an attitude of humility and kenosis. We should move away from a quantifying of the mission in terms of numbers to a qualification of the mission in terms of its influence on the world's salvation. This model of mission "inter gentes" values relationship, dialogue, consensus,

solidarity, and harmony. What this model tries to achieve is an "immersion" of the Gospel and the local churches in the realities of Asia, in the service of and solidarity with the churches of Asia. The inter gentes mission is a mission amongst the peoples of Asia. This model of mission considers how the Holy Spirit has acted during the history of salvation long before Christian missionaries came to Asia. The emphasis of the teaching of Asian bishops on solidarity, partnership and alliance with the peoples of Asia is a reference to a true "missio inter gentes"

3. The Utopian future: mission “trans-“ The mission "inter gentes" is not the final word concerning mission. The mission "inter" blossoms into the mission "trans." The mission is not intended to be a victory of one over the other, of one religion over another, of one culture over another, of one denomination over another. The mission has as its objective a "trans-": to us something unknown, from which the Kingdom of God, the New Jerusalem would emerge.

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We are in a period when we use words not just determined by the particle "inter". As far as we are concerned we talk about linking the particle “inter” with the cultural and the religious, with nationality, with the denominational, and with the congregational.(13)

There has to come a time when all the wealth of nations, of people and of individuals will come together. There has to come a time when in this "trans-" nobody believes that they possess everything that comes from the Spirit of the Lord, but you discover a new identity in which all that is best has been brought together: when God is everything in all things.

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IV THE SUBJECT OF THE MISSION: MISSION SHARED

1. The subject of the mission: the Church But we are a Church. And so, this return to origins and this look at the reality must not be carried out individually or in groups, but inclusively, in a catholic way. We should not resort to Vatican II and forget about almost fifty years of church life which has been the object of controversy and antagonism. The spirit that gave life to the Council, has also stimulated the post-conciliar Church. The post-conciliar Church, particularly along its synodal route at all levels, has deepened and shaped our concept of mission and has contextualized it as never before. It is the Church of Medellín, Puebla, Santo Domingo, Aparecida, it is the Church of the African and European Synods, it is the Church of Asia and its innovative proposals. The synodal direction has been changing the face of the Church much more than we imagined. It is true that synodal culture (= walking together) cannot be imposed overnight on a community of more than 1,000 million believers. But there is no doubt that with the passage of time we will come to see that the Church of the second decade of the twenty-first century will not be the Church of the 1950s. It seems unfair to judge the Church by the minor events that have occurred, that can happen at any time, even though they have been regrettable. The Church is much more than this. There are great perspectives that the Spirit opens up for us, which we have to follow. So, it is from this perspective that I want to address this conference, reflecting on the mission.

But I would like to say much more: the theology of mission as such has experienced in recent years a notable advance. We have opened up new perspectives rooted in the Trinity and repositioned it within an ecclesiology of mission and in the context of interreligious and intercultural dialogue, and dialogue about the life of the displaced and impoverished. This must be taken into account to avoid being trapped in a past that has now disappeared.

2. The “Shared mission”. In the last two decades, the institutes of religious life have introduced into their language the term "shared mission". It has been very successful and has become a key feature in government, education, vision and mission. However, there is a danger of making it a simple slogan that is used without being aware of what is involved. a) The root of this phenomenon: shared charism One of the most striking phenomena in religious life of our time is the awareness of a "shared charism."

We have become intensely aware how the gifts that give shape to the various religious institutes are not only "charisms" for the religious life, to be lived and

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explained within it, but also charisms to be shared with other forms of Christian life and even non-Christian life.

This does not deny that the very way of life itself (monastic, conventual, apostolic, consecrated, as we commonly call it) is not, in itself, a charism. And therefore, it is fair to say that the Spirit has, through founding characters, granted charisms that have aimed to establish a special form of Christian life. It is logical to deduce that these founding charisms of this way of life can not be shared with other forms of life and, therefore, endeavour that each one lives according to a way of life and condition that he has been called to (1 Cor 7, 17-22).

We must not forget that the Church is always controlled by the leadership and the inner drive of the Spirit. He blows like the wind, you do not know where it comes from nor where it goes (Jn 3.8), he distributes his gifts as he likes, to whom he likes and in his own time. The action of the Spirit can not be subjugated to our way of thinking nor our expectations. The Holy Ruah distributes his gifts, like first fruits, some to priests, some to lay people, others to religious communities, a gift that must be experienced and shared by others. We are talking about charisms that highlight a particular aspect of the Gospel (for example, one of the Beatitudes), which focus on some trait of the mystery of our God, and underlines it (eg, Providence), in a service rendered to the Church or the human community (eg, education or hospitality). Through the manifestation of this potential charism, often cultivated in a small group of male or female religious, it can be seen to be imparted to lay people, ordained ministers, to men or women and they experience the resulting charism as "their own". The result of all this is that charisms of hospitality, compassion, mercy, protection, providence, evangelism, education, catechesis, attention to different forms of poverty etc. are recognized as the gifts the Spirit gives to people from different ways of life so that they can express and act out the charismatic dynamism in their mission and in the spiritual life of the Church. Charism is, in this case, both lay and religious, and no group can claim for itself the absolute right of ownership or monopoly.

The "shared charism" takes a special form within the Church and creates what we have recently come to call charismatic "families". It is a phenomenon that should be taken into account in ecclesiology. Those who do not understand this accuse the religious life of having excessive contact with the laity and even encouraging the laity to leave the parish and diocesan structures, to form parallel church groups under the umbrella of a religious congregation.

It is not canon law which shapes the Church. It is the Holy Spirit. We have to watch carefully to find out where the Spirit leads the Church and how it shapes it. And the phenomenon to which I refer is one of them. In the Church there are stable forms of life, there is movement, there are charismatic families.

This panorama confirms that there are, amongst us, people with “complex” charismatic identities. In some people there is a complex mixture of charismatic loyalties, which should not surprise us: someone can be a Franciscan and at the same

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time belong to charismatic renewal group or the Focolare. Or that someone in the Neo-catechumens may feel a strong identity with the charism of St. John of God and demonstrate it in his way of life. The person who has grace from the Spirit may speak different languages. The authorities in the Church should help identify and create balance in the wonderful vagaries of the Spirit and not constrict them.

The consecrated life has discovered in recent times its charismatic connection with other people and groups from other forms of consecrated life and other forms of Christian life. There are people outside of those who officially belong to the institutes, who feel strong emotional, spiritual and missionary ties with our founders and the charismatic project and the missionaries of our institutes. We believe this is because the same Spirit that animates us also acts on them.

The consecrated life is, therefore, discovering a new structure under which they integrate and enter into communion with all those people (women or men, from one Christian way of life or other) who feel blessed with the same charismatic gift. This structure is the "charismatic family". In recent years the awareness of belonging together under one collective charisma has grown. There are the Trinitarian charismatic families, the Franciscans, the Augustinians, the Dominicans. This situation is of such importance that the exhortation "Vita Consecrata" recognizes and affirms that "the charism of an institute of consecrated life can be shared with the laity" (VC, 54).

This new reality leads to religious institutions rethinking the issue of charismatic inheritance. There are new partnerships to be established with re-defined identities. Charism can not be monopolized by one group. A rejection of monopoly requires generosity and hope, until the "common house" of charism is built. And together with the common house a suitable language has to be created for all, that allows mutual understanding in the same key areas; we have to establish common structures in which everyone feels "at home"; we have to create spaces for fellowship, spirituality, sharing and formation which allow us to share and develop a truly charismatic heritage. The structures of communion should not be an obstacle to legitimate autonomy and identity of each of the forms of life (VC, 70). Amongst all concerned, we must find and establish how to verbalize this unique charism and mission in the form of consecrated life, in the secular life, in the ordained ministry and in the male and female religious life. b) Shared mission within the theological field. From this aforementioned perspective, we can talk about "shared mission." It is true, and this must be stated at the outset that the mission, in its theological sense, is always (and can not be otherwise) a "shared mission." It was tersely put by the Second Vatican Council, when the decree "Apostolicam Actuositatem" on the Apostolate of the Laity, no.2 said: " Est in Ecclesia unitas missionis, pluralitas autem ministerio " ("In the Church there is unity of mission and plurality of ministries.") The unity of mission requires, therefore, that it be shared and that all the various

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ministries, insofar as they are services, aim to accomplish the one mission.

The mission, in its theological sense, is "missio Dei", as mentioned above; in this sense it is always a "shared mission", it is the great conspiracy emanating from God which stirs into action all believers and all human beings who are of goodwill.

However, during this reflection I want to focus on the "shared mission" that emerges from the "shared charism," which I have just spoken about, and now I would like to state what their dynamics and what their future perspectives are.

The shared charism is expressed as spirituality and mission or as mission and spirituality. Hence, it is possible to speak of "shared or common spirituality" and "shared mission", although those who share it may belong to different ways of life and different institutions.

It is now time to assess the energy brought to the Church by the charismatic families from the perspective of mission and spirituality. The Sallesian charism, for example, shared by religious and lay people, men and women, members from different Christian denominations (all of them associates) is a very important focus of mission and spirituality for the Church and for our humanity. The Holy Spirit, whom Herbert Mühlen referred to as "a mystical person" or "one person in many persons" is an extraordinary and transcendent agent of these phenomena of this charismatic, missionary and spiritual association. c) Seven principles It is extraordinary to find oneself as part of a sent group, like a family sent by the One who sent Jesus and who now sends the Spirit, as a collective gift to all, to instill encouragement and power. From this I would like to draw some very important conclusions:

*The charismatic mission, or the charismatic family’s contribution to the one mission, not born primarily of a human initiative, but of the Spirit, requires our constant attention to the signs of the Spirit, of discernment, of obedience to his revelations and recommendations. There is no charismatic mission without spirituality to support it at all times: a community, family spirituality. *In principle there should be no established hierarchies, nor ranks amongst those blessed with the charism. Lay people should not be considered as "second rate" individuals or as mere assistants to the religious. This means that institutions of religious life should not set themselves up as "the primary source" of government, economy, or leadership. At best, they should only do this to initiate and facilitate the process, as a kind of mentoring situation, giving rise then to a shared responsibility and leadership. *What gives the right to participate in the shared mission is to have been blessed and graced with a unique calling from God to share in a special charism within the

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Church, to live it with a special kind of spirituality and to act on it as a unique contribution to the mission of the Church. Without a vocation, the shared mission simply becomes a mere collaboration through friendship or fellow-feeling in various jobs; but it would not have the appearance of a charismatic calling to the mission, which comes from God. *The charismatic vocation unfolds through a process of becoming aligned with Christ Jesus, both in the form of religious life, as well as in the form of secular life. There is a spiritual, formative path which has to be shared, on the one hand, and separated out on the other. This requirement should not be neglected. Without formation, the mission loses its shape, spirituality also loses its shape. Therefore, amongst all concerned there should be structures of formation that encourage "joint or shared mission." *Shared mission is not discriminatory or exclusive. Beware of the danger of choosing your mission partners (lay or religious), excluding others for whatever reason. It is not we who call people to this vocation, but the Spirit of the Lord. We should welcome the brothers and sisters that God gives us. Shared mission respects the identity of the Christian life of each person: it does not blur the identity of the religious nor the lay person, neither the celibate nor those who are married. This calls for sensitive respect for the other person, who is different to us: respect their routines, their procedures, the intimacy of the communities they belong to. *Shared mission has a charismatic profile which has to be cared for and fostered. Its purpose is not to work, willy nilly, on just anything, but its charismatic expertise must contribute to the mission of the Church and to the life of spirituality. *The shared charismatic mission will become increasingly like a "network" or "networks" that will convert into reality and make tangible the dreams of the Spirit through the founding individuals and spiritual families.

d) The necessary change of mentality: metanoia The vision of "shared mission" has more implications than we suspected. It is taking us beyond the barriers set forth above, beyond the "states of Christian life." The states of Christian life, for example, the religious state, or the clerical state, were once considered to be completely closed, watertight compartments. Now we speak rather of "forms of Christian life" or "stable forms of Christian life." The form with the greatest stability is also subject to transformational processes. This charismatic correlation of life forms, loved by the Spirit, is transforming us all. And every transformation requires an openness of mind and heart, a complete "metanoia" or change of mind. To make this possible, I propose the following steps:

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*Banish from our minds several misunderstandings about identifying "shared mission" with "shared work"; although the mission does involve work, the mission is, above all, a commitment to cooperate with the Holy Spirit; this commitment is, at one and the same time, passivity and activity, contemplation and action, cost-free and profitable. Or the confusion of identifying shared mission with a voluntary commitment to help religious institutions free of charge, which either rely on it or dispense with it at their discretion. *Understand that we religious are not the owners of a charism. Therefore, anything that has anything to do with the charism should be discussed together as a family. This awareness will reconfigure institutions such as General Chapters, major Assemblies, our systems of formation, economic structures, constitutions and directories. *Move from the belief that shared mission is optional, to the conviction that it is a necessity. Therefore, this means entering a phase of true internal, charismatic ecumenism, subject to the procedures of intellectual dialogue and dialogue about life, which is required of all ecumenism. *Shared mission is born spontaneously when there is awareness that we are a charismatic family and we avoid any kind of separation, confrontation, discrimination, in order to live together as brothers and sisters and members, thanks to the Spirit. From the communion of life comes the desire to share the mission which comes from God, and to agree on concrete projects and actions. The shared mission becomes, for the religious institute, the normal way forward for all missionary work.

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CONCLUSION He who surrenders himself to shared mission, loses nothing. He gains everything. He will grow beyond himself. This is how the Church is "the body of Christ" in "perennial growth” (Mutuae Relationes). This is how to build the "ecclesiology of missionary communion." Forms of Christian life, ministries, charisms or charismatic powers will learn the art of the reciprocity, of mutual influence. The ordained minister does not suppress, nor extinguish, nor impose himself unilaterally, but becomes a point of mediation, synergy, bringing everyone together, so that nothing is lost. Similarly, everyone seeks to unite himself with the Body of Christ so as not to be a "vine-shoot" which dries up and burns in the fire of destruction.(15) *If we remember that the category of communion (and participation) is key to the understanding of Lumen Gentium, and that the category of service (and mission) is key to understanding Gaudium et Spes, today we can say that the greatest novelty of the Council is to present a church of missionary communion. Ecclesial communion is missionary communion, which means it is a Church that in shaping its identity and mission, its being and purpose, must continually look at the world and its history. From “Christifideles Laici" John Paul II used the term "missionary communion" to describe the identity and mission of the Church as communion. The shared mission is always open to new inclusions, whether gender, race, culture, or denomination ... To place ourselves in the key area of "shared mission" is fitting for a "catholic" Church, in the true etymological sense of the word: the church “in accordance with all”. Catholic Mission is not simply what arises from "our own perspective", from partiality, from a unilateral view. This is where the mission of the Church connects with the shared mission of humanity. The lower levels correspond with the upper levels, the "missio Dei" connects with the "missio humanitatis." The mission is not just a gift which the Christian community makes to humanity, but a gift that God makes to us all as we enter into a mutual relationship, in "missio inter gentes" and when we dream of the "trans-" still hard to describe but now coming into sight. (A further reflection is needed here: about the intercontinental mission. It is necessary to study how the church understands its mission from different continents).