There are words which, when we say them within the Church, run the risk of becoming familiar concepts, repeated and, precisely for that reason, seldom questioned. One of them is “mission”. We hear it in homilies, meetings, pastoral projects, classes and formation gatherings. We talk about “going on mission”, “being missionaries”, “bringing the Gospel”. However, we need to stop and ask ourselves once again: what does it really mean to be missionaries?
For St Marie Eugenie of Jesus, mission was not just one more activity of Christian life. It was the very heart of a life given to Jesus Christ and to the transformation of the world. Her gaze fixed on Christ led her to understand that encountering Him necessarily means going out of oneself. Faith cannot remain shut away in what is private, comfortable or familiar. When the Gospel truly touches life, a movement begins: we receive, we allow ourselves to be transformed and we are sent.
That is why to speak of mission is to speak of our own Christian identity. Being disciples of Jesus means being sent. Being “other Christs” means allowing our hands, our feet, our voice and our decisions to extend in the world the presence of the One who came to serve, to love and to proclaim the Kingdom of God. Mission, then, is not optional: it is a consequence of having encountered Christ.
Mission Begins in Encounter
The message of Pope Leo XIV for the 100th World Mission Day, which we celebrated on 18 October 2026, is entitled “One in Christ, united in mission”. It is no coincidence that the Pope places union with Christ as the starting point. At the centre of mission is a living relationship with Jesus: abiding in Him so that from this union may spring a life capable of giving itself to others.
Christian mission is born of love and leads to love. That is why the Good News we are called to proclaim is not an abstract idea, but the Gospel of God’s love made manifest in Jesus Christ.
Here I find a deep connection with the spirituality of the Assumption. St Marie Eugenie did not separate contemplation from action. To look at Jesus Christ also meant discovering the world He loved and taking on the responsibility of transforming it. Mission does not begin when we arrive in a community; it begins when we allow Christ to transform the way we look.
Learning with Our Feet on the Road
One of the elements that brings the greatest richness to missionary experiences drawing on the charism of the Assumption is the pedagogy of experience. This pedagogy starts from the conviction that we learn by experiencing, and that there is no need to separate life experience from learning experience. Everything we live through can enrich us when we take the time to decipher it.
A mission, then, should not consist only of taking young people to a different place so that they can “help” for a few days. If we want it to be truly formative, we need to allow them to come into contact with a different reality, to meet real people, to listen to stories, to discover other ways of living and to recognise both needs and riches they may never have imagined.
We learn when we listen to a family talk about their life. When we share a meal prepared by other hands. When we discover that poverty does not define a person. When we stop seeing the other as someone to “help” and begin to recognise them as a brother who also has something to teach us.
The pedagogy of experience proposes that the learner be the protagonist, that they encounter realities different from their own and that they take part in searching and encounters. That is why a well-accompanied mission not only transforms those who receive our presence; it also profoundly transforms those who dare to go out.
But the experience does not end when we return. It needs to be reread, shared and discerned. Learning also emerges when we are able to ask ourselves: What did I experience? What did I discover? What challenged me? Where did I recognise God? What changed in the way I look?
In this way, mission ceases to be only an experience that “we do” and becomes an experience that “transforms us”.
United to Proclaim
The theme of World Mission Day 2026 sets before us a second statement, inseparable from the first: “one in Christ, united in mission”. Unity among Christians is not an end in itself; it is directed towards witness and service. Communion takes on meaning when it becomes a concrete way of proclaiming the Gospel.
This also challenges our educational and pastoral communities. We cannot proclaim fraternity if our relationships are marked by division. We cannot speak of reconciliation if we are unable to forgive one another. We cannot invite young people to build community if we, the adults who accompany them, work from a place of competition, mistrust or isolation.
Before crossing a geographical border, perhaps we need to cross some personal borders: indifference, prejudice, comfort, fear of what is different or the inability to listen. That is why we do not go on mission only to bring something. We also go to learn to walk with others.
Mission Is Not Optional
In the end, I return to the opening question: what does it mean to be missionaries?
It means understanding that the Gospel received becomes the Gospel shared. That the encounter with Christ generates movement. That whoever has experienced God’s love is called to become a witness to that love.
St Marie Eugenie of Jesus understood that Christian life could not be reduced to preserving the faith, but had to commit itself to the transformation of reality. Her passion for Jesus Christ became a passion for the world and for the education of people capable of working together to build a society that is more just, more fraternal and open to the Gospel.
Today, on this World Mission Day 2026, the Church reminds us once again that we are “one in Christ and united in mission”; that is, each person has a responsibility in the proclamation of the Gospel, according to their own vocation and their own gifts.
That is why perhaps the question is not whether we want to be missionaries. The question is how we are going to respond to the mission we have already received.
Some will cross oceans. Others will walk through nearby communities. Some will proclaim with words. Others will do so with their hands. Some will accompany through prayer. Others will build projects, educate, serve, listen or build bridges.
The hands will be different. The stories will be different. The gifts will be different. But the heart can be one when it is united to Christ. And then we understand that mission is not just one more activity in our Christian life. Mission is the consequence of having encountered Jesus.
That is why mission is not optional. It is the grateful response of those who have discovered that God’s love cannot remain shut away in their own heart.
Carlos Enrique Castro Medina