Etapa de Revisión del Proyecto

Chapter one of Ad Gentes grounds the church’s mission in the mystery of the Trinity: “The pilgrim Church is missionary by her very nature, since it is from the mission of the Son and the mission of the Holy Spirit that she draws her origin, in accordance with God the Father” (AG 2). In a manner reminiscent of Karl Barth, AG reclaims mission as a trinitarian term, and only secondarily, as referring to the activity of the Church. Before the Church possesses a mission, the Son and the Spirit do. They are sent by God the Father as an outpouring of God’s “fountain-like” love into the world (AG 2). Commenting on this, David Bosch writes, “To participate in mission is to participate in the movement of God’s love toward people, since God is a fountain of sending love.”303 _{The Church, therefore, does not}

possess a mission of her own, but rather participates in the conjoint missions of the Son and

302 _{It is called the process of evangelisation in paragraph 47 of the General Directory for Catechesis.}

303 _{David J. Bosch, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1991),}

the Spirit. The mission the Church receives from the Son and the Spirit is constitutive of the Church’s very identity.304

Congar noted in his diary that he drew from the Latin theology of the Trinitarian processions, exemplified in Augustine, Alexander of Hales, Bonaventure, Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas in the theology of mission articulated in AG 2. Congar also

acknowledged the influence of twentieth century Protestant missiologist Lesslie Newbigin who had developed Barth’s depiction of God undertaking mission to the world. Barth’s position was subsequently described by Karl Hartenstein as the missio Dei, which has since become a common term for grounding the Church’s identity and mission in the Father’s sending of the Son and the Spirit.305

The third paragraph of AG begins by affirming the value of humanity’s attempts to find God, but also states that God’s salvific plan is fully realised in the self-communication of God in Christ. Humanity’s religious striving may serve as a preparation for the reception of the Gospel. The paragraph goes on to describe Christ’s saving action. “In order to establish peace or the communion of sinful beings with himself” and to establish the community of the Church, the Father sent his Son who assumed our humanity to reconcile the world to himself (AG 3). Christ’s mission is then portrayed in Irenaean terms: as the second Adam Christ recapitulates humanity in himself so that we might become sharers in the divine

304 _{Thus the Council’s Trinitarian ecclesiology is at the same time a missionary ecclesiology. See Anne Hunt,}

"The Trinitarian Depths of Vatican II," Theological Studies 74 no. (2013): 6.

305 _{See Stephen B. Bevans and Roger Schroeder, Constants in Context: A Theology of Mission for Today}

(Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2004), 290. The missio Dei has become an important foundation for Protestant missiology, and especially for the “missional church” movement, which in turn has influenced Protestant youth ministry scholarship. For a theological overview of the missio Dei in the missional church literature, see Craig Van Gelder and Dwight J. Zscheile, The Missional Church in Perspective: Mapping Trends and Shaping the Conversation (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2011).

nature. This “wonderful exchange” of our human nature with the Son of God’s divine nature is accomplished through Christ’s self-gift upon the Cross.306

The following paragraph declares that the Spirit is sent to “carry [Christ’s mission] on inwardly”; that is, to realize Christ’s salvation in people’s hearts and to lead the Church’s growth. The Church’s mission is always animated by the Spirit who equips the Church and the faithful with Christ’s own “mission spirit” and with gifts (AG 4). Jesus sends the Church, as the sacrament of salvation, into the world as the Father had sent him.307

AG 6 reflects Josef Neuner’s suggestion that the one mission of the church assumes different forms based upon the different “circumstances” in which mission takes place. The paragraph then describes missionary activity in that narrower sense as “particular

undertakings by which the heralds of the Gospel, sent out by the Church and going forth into the whole world, carry out the task of preaching the Gospel and planting the Church among peoples or groups who do not yet believe in Christ” (AG 6). As we have seen, this definition of the missions does not make geographical locations the object of mission, but rather people instead. Bevans rightly states that this represented only a partial victory for the advocates of a non-territorial definition of mission as the territorial concept of mission becomes more prominent in the latter chapters of Ad Gentes.308 _{Nevertheless, the}

anthropological definition of missionary activity signifies the shift to a post-Christendom model of mission.

306 _{The patristic depiction of salvation history in AG 3 possesses parallels in the four conciliar constitutions. See}

SC 5-6, LG 2-4, DV 2 and GS 2. The concept of salvation history possesses important links to the patristic origins of the RCIA, as we shall see in Chapter 5.

307 _{See Bevans, "Revisiting Mission," 270.}

308 _{Bevans and Gros, Evangelization, 35. Hunerman contends that it is from Chapter 4 onwards that AG returns}

to a Eurocentric vision, because it identifies missionaries as those who venture beyond Christendom to proclaim the Gospel. See Hunerman, "Final Weeks," 450.

Missionary activity is distinguished in AG 6 from pastoral care (and ecumenical

ventures), though local churches require pastoral care even as missionary activity also takes place. As many council fathers had noted, however, the reality was each stage of planting, growing, and establishing a local church may occur more or less concurrently.309

AG 6 also envisages that “an entirely new set of circumstances” may arise, as a cultural group experiences radical changes that affect the peoples’ Christian faith. This is a reference to the phenomenon of “dechristianisation”, or contexts where the church has experienced a significant loss of adherents or been reduced to largely nominal allegiance. AG states that this context requires the resumption of missionary activity, which subtly broadens the concept of mission beyond traditional “mission territories” to include these dechristianised contexts.310