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The Bishop, Most Rev Julius Yakubu Kundi, celebrated the World Mission Sunday at His Cathedral. Concelebrating at the Mass was Fr Okafor Gabriel Tochukwu, who delivered the homily. He showed how the term mission emerges as a Divine attribute. God is missionary in nature and has founded the Church to partake of this nature.
This is key to understanding the Pope's message which gives us the injunction, makes known the motive, and shows who we must invite. It tells us to tirelessly go out and invite people to share our experience of Jesus. God's banquet is the motive for the invitation with its eschatological and Eucharistic dimensions. It also says that everyone is our target, not coercively but persuasively through our sharing, tenderness and compassion.
The Gospel comes from the Great Commission which was Jesus' mandate to his disciples to go out and preach the Gospel to all creation. Through this gracious act, those who believe gain salvation; those who act otherwise deny themselves access to Divine mercy, a fulcrum for our salvation in Christ. Immersing ourselves in this makes us living signs that constantly point to Jesus, our source and end. This properly helps us understand the other signs that accompany those who believe and act on Jesus' mandate.
It is this invitation that gathers us in search and in need of God's favour as the prophet Zechariah points out in the first reading. This is what makes our supplications, prayers thanksgiving and intercessions worthwhile for the common good of our existence as a people as St Paul shows us in our second reading.
In all this, a sense of commitment must be involved in our quest to live the mission of Jesus today. This opens us to go to the mission by actually going or to participate in it by giving. Either way, something of ourselves must be shared for the good of another who needs God's intervention in his or her life.
Let us, therefore, contribute our quota to promoting the mission of Christ on earth that we might also prepare ourselves to partake of what he has in store for us as his people.
In his closing remark, the Bishop admonished the congregation to never get tired of contributing to the growth and promotion of the mission of Christ on earth. It is a duty we have to live and must give n account of. He also encouraged them to devise other means of engagement that allows everyone to take part in what is going on in the Church.
