‘The apostle is not a manager,’ Pope tells Missionaries of Africa
June 14, 2022
» Continue to this story on Vatican Press Office
CWN Editor's Note: On June 13, Pope Francis received participants in the general chapter of the Missionaries of Africa (White Fathers). Cardinal Charles Lavigerie founded the institute in 1868.
“The apostle is not a manager, he is not a learned lecturer, he is not an IT wizard, the apostle is a witness,” the Pope told the Missionaries of Africa. “This applies always and everywhere in the Church, but it applies especially to those who, like you, are often required to live in mission of contexts of first evangelization or where the Islamic religion is prevalent.”
“Witness essentially means two things: prayer and fraternity,” he continued. “A heart open to God and open to brothers and sisters. First of all, to be in the presence of God, to let oneself be looked at by him, every day, in adoration. There, to draw the lymph, in that ‘abiding in him’, in Christ, which is the condition for being apostles.”
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