“Jesus is not loved because He is not known.” These words of Saint Magdalene of Canossa arise from a profound experience of relationship with the crucified Jesus. What is not known cannot be loved, and what is not loved cannot be proclaimed. It may sound like a play on words, but it touches the very heart of who we are as Christians and followers of Christ.
This gives rise to questions we cannot avoid: Whom do I follow? To whom do I proclaim the Gospel? Our relationship with Christ—this union that gives life—is what truly matters. Only through union with Him are we shaped as missionaries. He teaches us how to be missionaries, because He is the Missionary of the Father. We learn from Jesus how to carry out mission, but above all, we learn to allow ourselves to be sent on mission by Him. In this way, we do not lose the essence of mission: proclaiming the Gospel of God’s faithful love, revealed in Jesus Christ.
In his message for the 100th World Mission Sunday, Pope Leo XIV reminds us: “Being Christian is not primarily a set of practices or ideas; it is a life in union with Christ, in which we share in the filial relationship that He lives with the Father in the Holy Spirit. It means abiding in Christ as branches abide in the vine (cf. Jn 15:4), immersed in the life of the Trinity. From this union comes the reciprocal communion among believers, and every fruitfulness in mission is born.”
Abiding in Christ is not an addition to mission: it is its source. The branch does not bear fruit through its own strength, but because it receives the sap from the vine. In the same way, a mission that does not arise from intimacy with the Lord risks being reduced to activism, project management or the mere transmission of ideas. By contrast, those who live in union with Christ communicate, almost without realising it, what they have seen, heard and experienced.
Let us return to what is essential: knowing Jesus more deeply in order to love Him more deeply, and loving Him so as to make Him known. For only those who feel loved and sent can become credible witnesses to the joy of the Gospel.
What will you take away from this? We might ask ourselves: how much time do I devote to knowing Jesus and abiding in Him?