The next input, after THEORY U, of the ICOF “Life Renewal Program 2017” was on “SCRIPTURE AND MISSION”.
In Fr. Rosario, sma, expertise style, the participants were taken through the Scriptures and were shown how NATURE GIVES HUMANITY ITS IDENTITY and for WHAT REASONS WE DO MISSION.
Nature gives us our identity, defines our sense of belonging and starts the road map of our life. In other words, human beings are creatures, simply part of God’s creation. Knowing who we are (our identity) begins by acknowledging and accepting that we receive life from God (dependency). But we endowed with the authority of God on nature as caretakers.
Freedom to choose what is good is the other element human beings learn about themselves. Only humanity has freedom, the rest of nature is programmed. Sin, evil and death entered into the world as the consequence of exercising this freedom. Sin and evil made human beings loose connection with God, but the Incarnation and the Resurrection restored that communion with God.
Therefore, the fundamental reason and guiding principle for doing mission, and choosing a place of mission should be based on helping the people in our various missions to find their eschatological beliefs and inculturating these in the Christian eschatology. When people are led to understand that they need God not to fix their small problems but because they are created imperishable, mission has then something to offer to humanity. The preaching of Jesus Christ should be centered on the Resurrection and the eschatology that derives from it.
Palm Sosthene, M.Afr.