ROME
Crux
January 6, 2016
By John L. Allen, Jr., Associate editor
john.allen@cruxnow.com
Pope Francis closed out the holiday season Wednesday by calling Catholicism to a new sense of missionary hustle, urging the Church to reach out to all the peoples of the world and insisting that “mission is her vocation.”
“To proclaim the Gospel of Christ is not simply one option among many,” the pope said, “nor is it a profession.” Instead, Francis said, it’s the “very nature” of the Church.
“There is no other way,” he said.
To accomplish that goal, the pope said, requires Christians “to go forth, to leave behind all that keeps us self-enclosed, to go out from ourselves and to recognize the splendor of the light which illumines our lives.”
In other words, for 2016 Pope Francis seems to want a Church on the move.
The pontiff made the comments in his homily for the traditional Jan. 6 Mass of the Epiphany, a feast that celebrates the moment when the Christmas star led the Magi, or three wise men, to the infant Jesus. On the Vatican’s calendar, the feast of Epiphany is considered to mark the close of the holiday season.
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