Continuidad de movimiento

The unity of God’s being and act implies that Divine Mission is the eternal-temporal

continuum which proclaims the unity of processio-missio and rejects any dichotomy between

God’s inner life and God’s relations with creation. God’s Mission is both and at the same

time eternal and temporal, timeless and historical. The “invisible” and “visible” missions in

the Augustinian-Thomist scheme are distinct yet not separate. The dialectic between eternal

processio and temporal missio corresponds to the transcendental-immanent nature of God’s

presence in creation. Kelly describes Aquinas’ treatment of the missio as “a subtle interplay

between presence and absence, between the visible and the invisible, and between the

‘already’ in terms of Christian experience, and the ‘not yet’ of its eschatological

fulfilment.”217 The unity of the eternal processio and the temporal missio eschews any

exaggeration of one to the detriment of the other, or reduction of one to the advantage of the

other.

God’s involvement in temporal history as shown by the missio of the Son and the

Holy Spirit is an essential dynamic of the divine life and mission. The eternal processio

enters into time and space according to the fittingness of creation and humanity. History is

the locus of the temporal missio where the eternal Triune God breaks into humanity. History

has as its telos the participation in the Trinitarian communion. History is the dynamic

unfolding of this teleological fulfilment. Thus, Divine Mission challenges all teleological

frameworks of history.

God’s visible and invisible missio today is experienced in both the church and the

world. The visible-invisible dynamics continues in the dynamics of the church and the

216

Lesslie Newbigin, The Household of God 1953: 201

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world—visible: church, invisible: world. There is no dichotomy between the church and the

world as there is no dichotomy between the visible and invisible Mission. The church is an

extension of Christ’s visible mission. The challenge for the church is to become performative

and efficacious signs of Christ’s visible mission. The church is the basic sacrament of the

visible mission of God.

This is the fundamental flaw of the two competing views on Missio Dei after the

Willengen conference: On the one hand is the group stressing the Missio Dei in the church

and on the other hand, is the group accentuating the Missio Dei in the world.

Missio Dei is to be part of God’s Mission in the world. The Church calls the attention

of the world to God’s invisible Mission in the world. The Church calls the world to

participate in God’s invisible mission. The invisible mission of God in the world explains the

mission of the church. In history, the visible mission of the Son was emphasized more by the

church since it highlights the church as extension of the Son’s mission. This, however, led to

the relegation of the invisible mission of the Holy Spirit. The emphasis on Son’s visible

mission also downgraded the eternal processions of the Son and the Holy Spirit. The danger

of emphasizing church’s visible mission of the Son is, as history have shown, either the

magnification of the church as manifested in Christendom or the undue emphasis of the Son

as expressed in christomonism. This is still manifested today, for example, in the Church’s

focus on mission as proclaiming Christ as the unique saviour218 can lead to new forms of

Christendom—triumphalism and exclusivism. Focusing too much on the visibility of God’s

mission through the church as in the Christendom model may lead to the unfortunate

devaluation of the invisible mission of God which goes beyond the church towards the whole

cosmos. As the resurrected Jesus said to Thomas “Have you believed because you have seen

me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe” (John 20: 29). By

218 _{Redemptoris Missio, Dominus Eiusus}

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these words, Jesus seems to imply that God’s invisible mission through the Son and the Holy

Spirit goes beyond the church’s manifestation of the visible mission of the Son. On the other

hand, the danger of relying too much on the invisible mission of the Holy Spirit in the world

can encourage the disappearance of the church, and worst, the exclusion of the church in

God’s mission.

The unity of visible-invisible missions which reflects the unity processio-missio is the

key framework in justifying mission today. Catholic missiology needs to go beyond the

eccesiocentric proclamation of Jesus to the invisible mission of the Son and the Spirit in the

whole cosmos. Mission today needs to continue to listen to the Spirit who continue to teach

the church to discover of the meaning of Jesus words and the mission of the Blessed Trinity.

The invisible mission—the movement of the spirit today in in the direction of greater

connection, communication, greater collaboration—chapter IV