the Petrine ministry since Gregory XII in 1415, Benedict soon moved to a monastery on the Vatican grounds and became a familiar face at official functions during Francis’s papacy.
But perhaps the fullest revelation of Francis’s vision for the Catholic Church came in November 2013, when he wrote the apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel) as a blueprint for Catholics on how to preach the Gospel in today’s world. In this document, Francis writes:
Each Christian and every community must discern the path that the Lord points out, but all of us are asked to obey his call to go forth from our own comfort zone in order to reach all the “peripheries” in need of the light of the Gospel. (Evangelii Gaudium 20)
To be Catholic, then, is to be always on mission — a worldwide mission of evangelization to the peripheries or margins of our society, where people are most in need of Gospel joy.
Rather than be “sourpusses,” as the pope puts it elsewhere in the document, God invites us to be joyful in sharing his “good news” (the meaning of the word “gospel”) with others. And God asks us to work together with other Christians, responding to the call of our common baptism, in doing so.
While this message is hardly new to Catholicism, Pope Francis’s background gives it a distinctive flavor and urgency. As a Jesuit, Francis comes from a religious order that is always on mission, regardless of whether that mission occurs in one’s own backyard or on the other side of the globe. And a spirit of Christ-centered discernment shapes this missionary perspective on being Catholic: Francis asks us, as individuals and as communities, to pray before we act.
So then what does it mean for all believers to “go forth from our own comfort zone” as missionaries to the margins? Whom do we find there? And what must we do to bring Christ’s love to the margins as a missionary church?
Rather than give blanket answers to these questions, Francis invites Christians to discern where the Lord is leading us. To get answers, we must take our questions to God in prayer and listen for his voice, asking for the grace to know God’s will and to do it in our lives. We must see, judge, and act on the Lord’s call in the context of our shared baptismal mission.
Francis, emphasizing that divine love precedes and enables our response of human love, adds that going to the margins requires Christians to first be rooted in a deeply felt knowledge of Christ’s personal love for each of us:
An evangelizing community knows that the Lord has taken the initiative, he has loved us first (cf. 1 Jn 4:19), and therefore we can move forward, boldly take the initiative, go out to others, seek those who have fallen away, stand at the crossroads and welcome the outcast. (Evangelii Gaudium 24)
So the margins include those who have fallen away and are outcast. But we Christians, as individuals and as an evangelizing community, must get our own house in order before we can bring real healing to our world. Above all else, our work must be rooted in a joyful conviction of Christ’s love for us that is genuine and spontaneous rather than merely dutiful.
In other words, each of us is called to a deep personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
As bishop and as pope, Francis has been particularly close to evangelical Christians and to charismatic Catholics on this all-important framework for evangelization. Once we feel secure in our conviction of Christ’s love for us, the pope says we will find ourselves called to move outward — not further inward — to share that love with people on the margins in a way that makes a difference. We will respond to God’s freely offered love by loving others freely.
Accordingly, while the starting point is internal, we cannot remain centered on ourselves. Even monks pray for others more than for themselves. To inspire others with the good news, our personal experience of Christ’s love must yield fruit in concrete action, inspiring us to love others through our deeds more than through our words.
In a September 2013 interview with Jesuit journals from around the world, published in multiple languages, Francis expressed this idea by saying he longed for the Catholic Church to be a “field hospital” of God’s love and mercy to people in need. As for his own role in steering the barque of Peter, the pope described himself frankly as a sinner in need of God’s mercy, just like anyone else.
Not only in this interview, but throughout his papacy, Francis has called on believers to pray for the grace to get out of our pews and shake things up by making a joyful noise. Rather than wait for people to come to our parishes, we need to go outside and meet them where they are.
Our mission to the margins is not merely a job for ordained shepherds, whom Francis exhorted in an early homily to “smell like the sheep,” but for all of us. Francis reminds us that God calls all believers universally, in the waters of baptism, to be disciples who are priests, prophets, and kings — in other words, self-giving leaders who act boldly to build a better world.
Looking at chapter 5 of The Joy of the Gospel, I believe we may discern the essence of Francis’s message in six themes that evoke his vision for a church of missionaries sent to the margins:
• Longing. The longing for God is innate in everyone — this is what we were made for, to be in relationship with God.
• Closeness. We must be close to people’s lives: “enter fully into the fabric of society”; step away from “personal or communal niches which shelter us from the maelstrom of human misfortune”; lead “wonderfully complicated lives.”
• Dignity. Every person is worthy of our giving.
• Weariness. When we go to the margins, we must be honest about how it affects us, transforming our fatigue into an ever-deepening outreach that is energizing and compassionate.
• Tenderness. Francis uses this word a lot. He talks about how it characterizes his interactions with others, and about how it might characterize ours.
• Mary. The Mother of Evangelization remains an ever-present model of discipleship.
Throughout the next six chapters of this book, I will follow these themes in reflecting on what it means for us to leave our parishes and go out to the margins in imitation of Christ. Then I will conclude with a few thoughts on the implications of this message for courageous discipleship in the future.
With the visit of Pope Francis to the United States in September 2015 for the World Meeting of Families, many Americans have now had the chance to see the Holy Father in person. We’ve heard his voice and read his words on going out to the fringes of society as missionaries of Christ’s love, even when it means healing the brokenness of our own families in a world of fast-changing values.
Again and again, Pope Francis urges all Christians: Go be missionaries of Jesus Christ’s love to people on the margins.
I hope this book will introduce readers to this key message in the teaching and life of Francis in a deeper way, inspiring us to more profoundly embrace the call of Jesus in our lives.
Of course, answering that call will be challenging at times. Striving to follow it in our daily routines, we might find ourselves tempted to doubt that our good news will really change the world. We may feel too beaten down by life and too disillusioned by past experiences to believe in the reality of Gospel joy.
However, as I hope the stories in this book will show, nothing is impossible with God. Not even a Jesuit pope.
