On Being Missionary
Barry Fischer, C.PP.S.

I will never forget that day in May of 1969 when the community of St. Joseph's College in Indiana gathered in the College Ballroom to celebrate a festive Eucharist of commissioning for another seminarian and myself, about to leave for Perú to begin our foreign mission experience. The Provincial, Fr. John Byrne, after his homily presented each of us with a cross symbolizing our being sent by the Congregation.
The image of a "missionary" has long evoked in minds of people an almost mystical, heroic figure who ventured off into exotic lands to spread the faith amid hardships and sacrifice.
At the end of the second millennium, the concepts of mission and missionary are undergoing radical changes. We live in a time when the entire Church has become more aware of her basic "missionary" nature and that each baptized Christian is missionary by his or her very call to the Christian life. In this context we need to re-look at our understanding of what it means to be a "missionary congregation". We must understand ourselves within the universal mission of the Church and at the same time discover what our unique contribution to that mission might be in the light of the spirituality of the Precious Blood. We are in the process of rediscovering our missionary charism as a part of our core identity.
Our Normative Texts state that: "Called to be sharers of the mission of Christ in the world, the members of our Society, inspired by and living consciously within the mystery of the Precious Blood, exert themselves continually to attain that conformation to him --human, Christian, communitarian, apostolic-- that best promotes the Kingdom of God." (#C28) Furthermore, the Holy Father writes in his Apostolic Exhortation, Vita Consecrata, that congregations live their mission "according to the specific charism of each Institute (cf. # 36-37, 52)."
We need to focus our participation in the mission of the Church from our own charism as "Missionaries of the Precious Blood." The "Profile of a CPPS Missionary", elaborated during the CPPS Formators' Workshop in 1992, states that: "The Blood of Christ is at the center of the life and ministry of the Missionary. This sign of God's love gives definition (description, clarification) to the missionaries' understanding of God's reign, to whom we are called and sent, and the message and word we proclaim."
A missionary is one who "is sent". We ask ourselves then: By whom are we sent? And to whom are we sent? The Blood of Christ becomes for us the mediation of God's call which gathers us in community for a particular mission.

CALLED AND SENT BY THE BLOOD
We live today in a culture of death in which the blood of many innocent people is shed daily in aborted children, in war, in ethnic cleansings, in displaced persons, at he hands of those who seek wealth and power, in the victims of economic systems which marginalize millions, condemning them to death by starvation or to lives which are marginal and barely "human". Christ continues to shed His Precious Blood in the blood of the innocent today. It is Abel's blood shed daily and which soaks the very earth we tred. The Holy Father in his encyclical Evangelium Vitae describes in detail this culture of death and beckons all Christians and peoples of good will to hear "the voice of your brother's blood which cries from the ground." And he speaks of the Precious Blood as God's response to the cry of Abel's blood, as the source of perfect redemption and the gift of new life (#25). He makes an urgent plea to all Christians and peoples of good will to proclaim the Gospel of Life (#82-84).
As a Society of Apostolic Life in the Church, bearing the name of the Precious Blood, we are called to be a living voice of the Blood of Christ which cries from the earth in the blood of those who suffer today! This can be for us a way to focus our identity and our mission, a way which crosses over the boundaries of culture and language, a way of understanding ourselves in whatever apostolate or ministry in which we are engaged.
Questions such as, "Where do we hear the cry of the blood in our particular situation or context?" and "How can we respond to that cry in our ministries?" become questions which help us to focus our mission from the perspective of our Precious Blood identity. They are questions which can unite us as we seek to respond with creative fidelity to our charism.
Just as the cry of the blood of Abel moved God to compassion and intervention to liberate humankind from all that oppresses, so too are we called to commitment. We who hear the cry of the blood are called to respond to that cry with the Blood of Christ, a blood which speaks of Covenant, of Cross, and of Reconciliation!
The circumstances may be different from one place to another and in one culture or another, but wherever we find ourselves, and in whatever ministry we are involved in, the cry of the blood rises up from the very earth we tred!
We, Missionaries of the Precious Blood, are called in a special way to be the "living memory", the voice of the voiceless, the critical conscience of society and of the church, so that they do not remain deaf and indifferent to the cry of the Blood of Christ today.

MOBILITY AND FLEXIBILITY
Historically, at the beginnings of our Congregation, the notion of the "itinerary missionary" was very much prevalent. Gaspar and his companions came and went from the city to the countryside, crisscrossing the Papal States preaching popular missions and conducting spiritual exercises. Today our concept of missionary has been widened and we are challenged to understand "missionary itineracy" within the context of the Church's mission and in creative fidelity to our charism.
The biggest threat to our missionary identity is the tendency to "become installed", either as individuals or as an Institute, whether because of a sense of caution, fear, exhaustion, or due to external threats which limit our pastoral activity, or simply for the lack of creativity.
To hear the "cry of the blood" is unsettling! It disturbs our peace and challenges our comfort and securities. We should be willing to be led, in response to the cry of the Blood which calls out to us from the ground. This willingness to be led requires of us an inner freedom and a spirituality of exodus, a true kenosis. It is the Blood which will take us "to where we would rather not go" (John 21, 20ff). The poor and suffering will be our guides. Those rejected by society become the cornerstones, the center of our apostolates and of our mission. To do so, is to live in obedience to the Call of the Blood, the most radical and fundamental call of a Precious Blood missionary. We are called to renew our apostolic commitments, living new styles of community and apostolic life, in answer to this Call of the Blood. This obedience challenges us to become more "missionary" in all of our apostolic endeavors.
A Missionary Community is one standing in the doorway with staff in hand, waiting and discerning the call (cf. Normative Texts, C32). Our first challenge is to overcome our fears and comforts, whether they are personal or institutional. The Missionary of the Precious Blood is a mobile and flexible person, always available to go to where the Blood of Christ calls us today!

In This Edition
Several CPPS Missionaries share their experiences and the challenge of mission from diverse perspectives. First of all, Fr. Robert Schreiter leads off by presenting five different ways of modeling mission. These models are a valuable help for all of us to understand how we each view mission and to become aware of what model we are living. In that light, the article by Fr. John Bosco on "being a Christian missionary in a non-Christian country" is quite interesting. What is the objective of mission in countries where Christianity is a minority religion? Fr. Fritz Tschol, a veteran foreign missionary in the Xingu Prelacy, reflects on his forty-two years in Brazil and speaks among the challenges of inculturation. Fr. Willi Klein, General Councilor, shares with us how the re-opening of the C.PP.S. Mission in Croatia is being planned and how it reflects some of the "Criterion for Founding a Mission" which was adopted last July in Tanzania at the Meeting of Major Superiors. And from a parish perspective, Fr. Thomas Hemm reflects on the role of the laity and of collaboration in the post-conciliar missionary parish in the United States.

Hopefully this edition of The Cup will serve as a stimulus and offer some helpful elements for an on-going reflection on our "missionary charism." How are we living as individuals and as an Institute the flexibility and mobility of a Missionary of the Precious Blood?

Trends in Mission Today
Robert J. Schreiter, C.PP.S.

"Missionary" has always been in the official Latin Title of the C.PP.S., and we use it nearly everywhere as part of our name. More importantly, it is part of the identity we share which goes back to the Founder himself.
Through the course of our history, being missionary has meant a number of different things. This is not surprising for an Society of Apostolic Life whose apostolate has been tied so closely to the ministry of the Word. When how and where the Gospel message needed to be heard, our work in service of the Church changed too.
Not only have the needs of the local church changed over time in the many countries around the world in which we serve. The Church's own understanding of its mission has developed throughout the twentieth century, especially during the Second Vatican Council and in the teachings of Popes Paul VI and John Paul II. To put that shift simply: the Church went from being a church which had missions as part of its activity, to the Church being mission. The whole Church is itself missionary, as we read in Ad gentes, the Decree on the Missionary Activity of the Church.
The purpose of this article is to review the different ways the Church is missionary, and to see how the C.PP.S. fits into these ways. As already noted, the C.PP.S. has been missionary in different ways in the past. And we can anticipate new challenges as we move into the future.
I would like to suggest five ways in which the Church is missionary. Then I want to present how the C.PP.S. has participated in each of these ways--to the extent that the C.PP.S. has undertaken this form of mission. In concluding, I want to look toward the future.

Ways of Being Missionary
Pope John Paul II reminds us in his encyclical Redemptoris missio that our participation in the evangelizing work of the Holy Spirit may result in many different kinds of activity. Here are five of the many ways we participate in this saving work:
-- mission as first evangelization
-- mission as new evangelization
-- mission as establishing the Church
-- mission as responding to a local church in need
-- mission as sharing the C.PP.S. charism

Mission as First Evangelization
First evangelization is for many people the primary form of mission. Following the stirring words at the end of Matthew's Gospel, missionaries "go out and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." (Matt 28:19). The image of the missionary setting out to foreign lands, bringing the Gospel where it has never been preached before, and making converts of those who hear it. The experience of the Church's rapid growth in the nineteenth and twentieth century because of the work of first evangelization has only made this image more powerful.
Pope John Paul II does give this form of evangelization pride of place in his encyclical, but says at the same time there are other forms of evangelization as well. In point of fact, only a minority of missionaries in the world are engaged in first evangelization. That is the case because many of those countries where the Gospel might still be preached for the first time have restricted entry to Christian missionaries (many Muslim and Buddhist countries, and the remaining Communist countries). Opportunities for first evangelization are actually quite few.
The C.PP.S. engages most directly in first evangelization in Brazil and Tanzania, where C.PP.S. missionaries have brought many people to the Christian faith. To some extent in India this has also been the case, although outright convert-making is not permitted. Father John Bosco explores the meaning of this in another article of this issue.

Mission as New Evangelization
Pope John Paul II has called for a "New Evangelization" of the world as we move into the third millennium of Christian faith. New Evangelization is a renewal of Christian faith among Christians, and in the societies in which they live. It is an outreach to those who have left the Church or are not very active within it.
It was this sort of mission which inspired St. Gaspar to bring together the little band who became the C.PP.S. Perhaps more than any other form of mission, this kind of mission--aimed at the renewal of Christian faith--has been most central to C.PP.S. identity. It would characterize the way many--perhaps most--C.PP.S. members are missionary today.

Mission as Establishing the Church
In this form of mission, people leave their homelands to help a new local church establish itself in another place. These kind of missionaries often endure hardships much as those who engage in first evangelization.
The move of C.PP.S. missionaries from Europe to North America in the nineteenth century is an example of this. The C.PP.S. responded to the new church there by going to help especially with German and Italian immigrants. As time goes on and the local church is established, C.PP.S. missionaries may move on, or focus themselves on the new needs within that local church, or see to its ongoing renewal.

Mission as Responding to a Local Church in Need
In this form of mission, special needs of a local church prompt other local churches to respond to that need. This happened after World War II, when Pope Pius XII asked the North American Church to send missionaries to Latin America to help strengthen the Church there against the challenges it was facing from outside. The C.PP.S. responded by sending missionaries to Chile, and later to Peru. The shortage of priests there put the church at risk. The C.PP.S. shared generously in helping remedy that situation.
This way of being missionary will no doubt continue as new needs emerge, and local churches find themselves equipped to help others in their need.

Mission as Sharing the C.PP.S. Charism
There have been instances when the C.PP.S. has been invited or has gone to other countries not to meet a specific need, but to extend the influence of the C.PP.S. charism, at it were. This allows our charism to take root in a new place, and open up new possibilities for the local church and for the C.PP.S. C.PP.S. foundations in Germany, Spain, and Poland could be seen as examples of this.
Such efforts have yielded many positive results. It is something very common among religious institutes, especially those whose focus is upon their own community life. It runs the risk, however, of confusing the specific purpose of a Society of Apostolic Life such as the C.PP.S. The risk is that, without a defined need as apostolic purpose, a Society of Apostolic Life will drift either into the pattern of the diocesan clergy, or make community life its purpose, as do religious institutes. As was noted two issues ago in this publication, a Society of Apostolic Life is defined first by its mission. Community life and spirituality are oriented to support that mission. Together, as the Moderator General has said so frequently, they form the three pillars upon which the C.PP.S. rests.
To be sure, other forms of missionary activity have their risks as well. For example, what does a missionary community do when the need it went to meet has been fulfilled?

Future Directions
The word "mission" means "to send" or "to be sent." It is this going out with the Good News that is at the heart of missionary activity. We go out in many different ways: across national or cultural boundaries, into specialized ministries, among people different from us. The Gospel needs to be preached so that it can be heard by these many different groups of people, whose needs too can change over time. As a Society of Apostolic Life, if we continue to go out to others and to preach the Gospel as faithfully and courageously as we can, we will be truly missionary.

Forming the Missionary Parish
Thomas Hemm, C.PP.S.

St. Gaspar and the Parish
In the 1980's, the Chilean Vicariate struggled to clarify our identity as a "missionary" community. We decided to change our title from "Fathers" to "Missionaries" of the Precious Blood. We became more aware of the focus on the ministry of the Word, especially through missions and retreats. We began to wonder if, by our heavy involvement in parishes, the North American provinces and its missions were failing to live up to the missionary charism of St. Gaspar.
We traced our way back to the Community's respond to the call of the bishop of Cincinnati in the middle of the last century. Did Francis De Sales Brunner lead us off course by responding to that call? St. Gaspar had clearly avoided parish commitments to keep the members free for the specific missionary work of the Institute.
But then I tried to imagine what was the kind of "parish" that St. Gaspar did not want his members to staff. Could it be that the post-Vatican II parish might be quite different from a parish in the Papal States in the nineteenth century? How would St. Gaspar respond to the parish of the 1980's and 1990's?
Thinking about this led me further: Is the Catholic parish as we know it today very different precisely because of the reform led by St. Gaspar and other missionaries like him? Even if St. Gaspar did not focus his energies on reshaping the parish, the mission and retreat work he began brought about a greater consciousness of crying missionary needs right inside the parish.

The Parish since Vatican II
With Vatican II, mission became an integral part of the Church's self-understanding. Mission is what the post-conciliar parish is about. Note the spirit in these excerpts from the Council documents:
Furthermore, the care of souls should always be inspired by a missionary spirit, so that it extends with due prudence to all those who live in the parish (Christus Dominus, 30)
The parish offers an outstanding example of the apostolate on the community level inasmuch as it brings together the many human differences found within its boundaries, and draws them into the universality of the Church....As far as possible the lay faithful ought to collaborate in every apostolic and missionary undertaking sponsored by their own ecclesial family. (Apostolicam actuositatem, 10)
A local community ought not merely promote the care of its own faithful, but should be imbued with the missionary spirit and should smooth the path to Christ for all people..." (Presbyterorum ordinis, 6)

The Laity and Mission
One development of the Council, however, might have caught St. Gaspar off guard. He may have been surprised that the fundamental missionary responsibility, once claimed by the hierarchy, now rests with each of the baptized followers of Jesus.
In his post-synodal exhortation on the laity, Pope John Paul II points out this profound shift when he says that the missionary call
is a concern not only of pastors, clergy and men and women religious. The call is addressed to everyone: lay people as well are personally called by the Lord, from whom they receive a mission on behalf of the Church and the world....The Council has written as never before on the nature, dignity, spirituality, mission and responsibility of the lay faithful....The Lord himself renews his invitation to all the lay faithful...to associate themselves with him in his saving mission. Once again he send them into every town and place where he himself is to come (Cf. Luke 10:1) (Christifideles laici, 2)
The favored status of the laity in the post-conciliar missionary parish is especially challenging for those called to pastoral leadership. In fact, it may well be one of the most significant challenges to an Institute such as ours as we enter the next millennium. In the more traditional parish, the clergy were responsible for mission and the lay people were brought aboard to help. In the contemporary missionary parish, the tables are turned.
This change is reflected in the Mission Statement of the Cincinnati Province. One of the priorities we see is to fulfill our mission through "calling forth the gifts of the laity and working in collaboration with them."
This involves a shift in self-understanding for pastoral leaders. While the common priesthood of the faithful remains clearly distinguished from that of the ordained, "pastors must always acknowledge that their ministry is fundamentally ordered to the service of the entire People of God" (Heb 5:1) (Christifideles laici, 22.3)

Leading a Missionary Parish
Often in my own pastoral ministry I have tried to build up this new self-understanding by recalling the words of joy and praise of Jesus as he contemplates the gifts that God has given especially to the "little ones." (Luke 10:21) I find that, rather than considering myself to be the one in charge, I am called to be a privileged witness to what the Holy Spirit is doing.
I was recently introduced to a book by Howard Friend which has been helpful in reflecting on how to form a missionary parish. The book is Recovering the Sacred Center: Church Renewal from the Inside Out (Judson Press, 1998). Using one of many helpful metaphors, he compares the so-called traditional parish to an airline company:
An airline tries to coax as many passengers as possible into a limited number of seats on a limited number of flights headed in a limited number of directions. If your desired destination is not on the airline's list, you don't use that airline. (p. 87)
The missionary parish is more like an airport. Here all members are pilots, taking initiative according to their baptismal calling. Friend continues:
An airport, on the other hand, seeks to provide a safe setting for an optimum number of takeoffs and landings for large and small planes headed in a variety of destinations. The destinations are determined by the operators of the planes....So as leaders we become more like air traffic controllers than pilots.

Conclusion
In closing, I would summarize what I have said by suggesting that, while the preaching of missions and retreats will always be a privileged part of our apostolate, St. Gaspar's missionary charism also offers a sorely needed contribution to forming a missionary parish. In the post-synodal document on the Church in America, Pope John Paul has described this need with new urgency:
This kind of renewed parish needs as its leader a pastor who has a deep experience of the living Christ, a missionary spirit, a father's heart, who is capable of fostering spiritual life, preaching the Gospel and promoting cooperation. A renewed parish needs the collaboration of lay people and therefore a director of pastoral activity and a pastor who is able to work with others. Parishes in America should be distinguished by their missionary spirit, which leads them out to those who are far away. (Ecclesia in America, 41)
I believe that St. Gaspar would agree. Perhaps we are witnessing a new phase of his dream:
In my mind at times I see a multitude of workers who are gradually making their way throughout the entire earth with the holy chalice of Redemption...'making peace through the Blood.' (Letter to Msgr. Bellisario Cristaldi, 22 May 1826)

Founding a New Mission
Willi Klein, C.PP.S.

Introduction
When the then Provincial, Fr. Anton Loipfinger, invited me to take part in the centennary celebration of the A.S.C. in Banja Luka in Bosnia in 1979, no one in the province would have thought that a foundation of the C.PP.S. could ever be established there. Although I could not understand the language, the warmth and the deep faith of the Christian brothers and sisters there, suffering under Communist and nationalist persecution, impressed me very much.
In the years that followed, I lead various retreats and days of recollection for the A.S.C. sisters and for youth there. Slowly the idea of establishing a C.PP.S. foundation there began to grow, until finally in 1987 the Bishop of Banja Luka asked our Moderator General to send missionaries into his diocese.

The Expansion of Our Congregation in the Past
Our Congregation has had a variety of experiences with foundations in new territories and with members being founders. Many foundations led to a wider expansion of the Congregation; others were given up after a shorter or longer period of time.
Francis De Sales Brunner made his first foundation in Löwenberg in Switzerland in 1839 and in Alsace in France. The atmosphere of hostility to the Church, Brunner's missionary effort, and the invitation of the Bishop of Cincinnati led to the founding of a house in St. Alphonsus in Peru, Ohio, and from that house the North American provinces.
In looking for a beachhead in his European homeland, Brunner came to Schellenberg in Liechtenstein in 1858. It was there that Gregor Jussel began the expansion of the Congregation into the German-speaking countries in 1911.
The gift of the Casa del Sol led to the establishment of a house in Caceres in Spain in 1898 by Bartolomeo Corradini. From this came the Iberian Province.
Eduardo Ricciardelli and Paquale Renzullo went to Chicago in1904 to care for Italian immigrants. There began the Atlantic Province.
At the suggestion of the Vatican's Propaganda Fide, Markus Schaawalder began work in Porto de Moz on the Amazon in Brazil in 1930. His confrere Johann Rinderer died shortly after his arrival in the "green hell" of yellow fever. This was the beginning of the Brazilian Vicariate.
The North American Provincial John Marling made a five-week trip through South America and, following agreement of the Propaganda Fide, John Wilson and John Kostik arrived in Santiago, Chile in 1947 and began what was to become the Chilean Vicariate.
At the request of the Peruvian bishops and the Propaganda Fide the mission in Peru was begun when Paul Buehler arrived in Lima in 1962.
Paul Aumen began working in Guatemala City in 1975, which led to the founding of the Guatemalan Mission in 1985.
Wishing to spread the charism of St. Gaspar into Eastern Europe, and with the invitation of the ASC sisters in Poland, Winfried Wermter began working in Czestochowa in Poland in 1983, and so began what has become the Polish Vicariate.
A new missionary spirit in the Italian province, and several reconnaisance trips and discussions with bishops in the areas visited led to the founding of the mission in Manyoni in Tanzania in 1966 and in Bangalore in India in 1989. Both efforts were led by Giuseppe Montenegro.
This historical survey allows us to see that different reasons led to the spread of our Congregation: the commission of Jesus Christ and the missionary zeal of our confreres; the desire to spread the charism of St. Gaspar throughout the Church; the search for vocations; concrete needs of a local church; openness to where the Holy Spirit would lead us. At the same time, it has been a history of difficulties and human weaknesses, of great sacrifice on the part of individuals and of provinces.

A Beginning in Yugoslavia Undone: 1988-1992
The Major Superiors of our Congregation approved "Criteria for the Establishing of a Mission/Delegation and the Erection of a Vicariate or a Province" in July, 1988. In that document it says: "The setting up of a future mission/delegation must be done by a province, and is not to be the personal initiative of a single member. This means that (1) more than one definitively incorporated member of the province works in the future mission/delegation, and (2) that this work has the support of the clear majority of the province membership."
The work in Yugoslavia had from the beginning a weak point: the Moderator General approved the establishment of a mission in Yugoslavia, which had been decided upon by an overwhelming majority of the German Province in April, 1988, but I began the work alone.
I began in the autumn of 1988 in the diocese of Banja Luka in Bosnia giving retreats and days of recollection, and with building a mission house in Nova Topola, with the help of the A.S.C. sisters and the diocesan priests there. Local candidates started joining, who still needed formation but also worked alongside with me. This was all also difficult because I resided there illegally, and the things that I was doing were expressly forbidden by local authorities. This lasted for four years. In Zagreb, I established a second house for the formation of candidates--again illegally, but with the blessing of the archbishop.
Difficulties with the candidates, the war breaking out in 1991, and extensive relief work with the refugees took a toll on my health, and so my Provincial, Fr. Josef Epping, moved me to Schellenberg in Liechtenstein in the summer of 1992 for rest and recuperation. Our mission house in Nova Topola was destroyed, the house in Zagreb was given to the A.S.C. sisters, who had lost large houses in Bosnia.
In the years that followed, uncertainty reigned for me and for the provincial government about whether the work begun there could be carried further.

A Second Beginning for the "Croatian Delegation"
Since then the war created a new political situation: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzogovina, and Macedonia have become independent states. The Polish Vicariate declared that it was prepared to send missionaries to Croatia, and the Province Business Assembly of 1998 decided to carry the work further.
Besides the Director of the Delegation, the Polish Vicariate is sending a priest who will be the formation director, a brother, and a seminarian. With them is coming also a Croatian seminarian who has completed three years of formation in Poland already. Two M.S.C. sisters from Poland will work with us. Croatian candidates are to receive their formation both in the Polish Vicariate and in Croatia. We will reoccupy our house in Zagreb to begin, since the A.S.C. sisters no longer need it.
In the "Criteria" mentioned above, it says: "There are to be clear apostolic needs in the region that make it possible to realize the charism of our Congregation as "service to the Church through the apostolic and missionary proclamation of the word of God (C3)." The goal set in 1988 remained the same:namely, to stand at the fissure where for centuries Latin and Orthodoxy Christianity and various political interests have rubbed each other raw, in order to answer the cry of the Blood. Nonetheless, a new orientation was necessary, based on the "Criteria" and the new political situation. We made contact with several bishops in the area, and the decision developed to set up a mission house in Ludbreg in Croatia. Ludbreg is a shrine to the Blood of Christ, to which ever greater numbers of pilgrims are coming. The local bishop of Varazdin gave his consent and wrote: "If God has chosen Ludbreg as a place where the Blood of Christ is to be honored in a special way...then it is necessary that the Church on its part undertake the greatest efforts to allow Ludbreg to become a spiritual center and place for the spiritual renewal of the dioces of Varazdin and our entire Croatian motherland." (Letter of July 10, 1998)
With the help of God and of the German province we want to be able to do this, not only for Croatia, but also beyond Croatia's borders.

Being Missionary in a Non-Christian Country
John Bosco, C.PP.S.

Introduction
"In an age characterized by the globalization of problems and the return of the idols of nationalism, international institutes especially are called to uphold and to bear witness to the sense of communion between peoples, races and cultures." With these words of Pope John Paul II, I would like to share something of my seven years of experience as a missionary in this non-Christian country called India.

Early Evangelization in India
Tradition has it that St. Thomas the Apostle first brought Christianity to India in 52 A.D., although there is no documented evidence of Christianity until the establishment of the Syrian Church on the Malabar coast in the third century. Most of the rest of India had to wait for the Gospel until the advent of the Portuguese in 1498.
Three distinct missionary methods were used to evangelize in India. The first--which might be called the Portuguese method--used strong-arm methods of proselytization based on the idea that the conqueror of the land had the right to determine the religion of his subjects. This method also included negative propaganda against the native religions and cultures. When one was converted to Christianity, one had to assume a Portuguese name, dress, and culture.
The Jesuit Robert de Nobili came to India in 1606. He took a radical decision to adopt an indigenous life-style and culture. He expressed the Gospel in terms of Hindu culture so that caste Hindus might not feel Christianity to be an assault on their established way of life. He acquired a fine command of Tamil and Sanskrit, and adopted the dress, diet and social customs of the Brahmins.
In the late nineteenth century, the Jesuit missionaries Constant Lievens and Johannes Baptist Hoffmann came to Chotanagpur. Both of them realized that the tribal people were being exploited by the landlords and money lenders. They studied and battled the evils of oppression, founding agricultural cooperatives, and so won many tribals to Christ.
In a country like India, with so many religions and so many poor, a combination of the methods of de Nobili, and Lieverman and Hoffmann will be necessary for effective evangelization.
In India today, about 3% of the population is Christian. It is estimated today that a majority of Christians come from the very poor, often those who are considered outcaste in the caste system.

Evangelization in India Today
One can discern five trends in Christian missionary activity in India today.

1. Evangelization as Liberation
In a context of exploitaton, discrimination and injustice, liberation and liberative movements with a view to integral development are considered an essential part of evangelization. In our parish, we commit ourselves to integral development through all our resources, human and material.

2. Evangelization as Dialogue
India with its great religious traditions and spiritual wisdom has led the Church to call for a serious dialogue with these religion traditions and with the people who adhere to them. We have about ten Hindu temples, one Muslim mosque, and one Buddhist temple within our parish territory. I have already met the religious leaders of these temples. They felt very happy to meet me, and I now have a very good relationship with them. Soon I am going to arrange a meeting, inviting all the non-Christian leaders in our parish territory. With Christianity as a minority, I have many interfaith marriages to deal with. Also, three to five Hindu families convert to Catholicism each year in my parish. When I got to visit my parishoners, many Hindu families also call me to bless their houses. This shows their great respect for our religion.

3. Evangelization as Inculturation
One of the major difficulties that the Church in India faces is its Western garb. To overcome this obstacle, the Church in India has to undertake seriously the process of inculturating herself in all aspects of her life into the socio-economic reality of the country. This is one of the tasks of us engaged in the evangelization of India.

4. Evangelization in the Christian Ashram
The Hindu monastic life-style of the ashram is of crucial importance for evangelization. Christian ashrams, after the model of Indian ashrams, can become centers of spiritual wisdom and consolation where true seekers of truth and light may be attracted. Christian ashrams are not threatening for those of us who have grown up in the Hindu religious traditions.

5. Evangelization and Ecumenism
In the spirit of the Second Vatican Council, the All-India Seminar resolved: "we commit ourselves to do everything in our power to foster the ecumenical movement, in study, social action and worship, so that all those who acknowledge Christ as Lord and Saviour may in fact be one in him. Whatever we can do together we should not do separately."
There are ten Protestant churches in my parish territory. Last year on December 20 I invited the pastors of all these churches to a small meeting in our presbytery. At the end I arranged a fellowship meal for all the pastors. This year, on the feast of our parish patron St. Paul (January 24), I once again invited all the pastors and arranged a Christian Unity celebration. All the pastors gave a short speech, and expressed their great joy in coming together like this.

Conclusion
Evangelization takes on many forms in the Church, and special forms in a country like India. In a land of so many religions and so many poor people, bringing the Good News of Jesus Christ is both a challenge and a joy. In our parish, we try to reach out in all these different ways.

Being a Life-Long Missionary
Fritz Tschol, C.PP.S.

Called to be a missionary

The date was January 26, 1957. The Provincial, Fr. Josef Mueller, called me to his office. When I came out a few minutes later, the decision was settled: I was going to the Xingu Mission. The missionary who goes out into a strange, unknown world evokes in many amazement and admiration. His departure is celebrated solemnly in the seminary and ill his home parish. Jesus calls to himself those he will (Lk 6:13) - not the best, not the strongest, but those he will. "You did not choose me; no, I chose you (John 15:16). He only knows why.
I was ready to go. I was to sail from Hamburg at the end of November, 1957.
Shortly before setting sail the whole itinerary was changed. Now I was supposed to sail
from Rotterdam at the beginning of December. My departure from home fell as it
would happen on December 3, the feast of St. Francis Xavier, the patron of
missionaries. Coincidence? That night the first snow fell, covering mountain and valley in white. With all the uncertainty of what to expect in a strange world, I was in the state of mind as if the Lord were saying to me: let go, trust Me, I am with you.
On Christmas eve, December 24, 1957, 1 arrived in Belém - Bethlehem. I immediately celebrated my first Mass in out mission, in out old mission house at midnight with the elderly house servant. Christmas: unto us a chid is born. Mission: preparing the way of the Lord in the hearts of people.
Then three days by ship up the Amazon and the Xingu River, and then still fifty kilometers further on a bumpy road by night through the jungle. The truck got stuck in the soupy mud. After the long trip I arrived on foot in Altamira. Mission is going to the people - "Go out into the whole worlds'. In our huge Xingu Mission, out work still is a going out - by jeep or boat - to the distant settlements in the hinterland of the Transamazon or to the coastal settlements in the thousand meter-long tropical river area.

Becoming a missionary
The first big task you have as a young missionary is learning a foreign language, finding
your way into a strange culture. You take your "first steps" - like a child - not being understood and not being able to express what you want to say. For five months I stumbled around in my preaching until one day a simple field hand said that today he had understood for the first time what I was trying to say.
You have to take on the ways and customs of a strange culture, and set aside any European feeling of superiority. It is a lifelong task to live ever more fully within the culture of this people, to learn it more deeply and find the good within it. St. Paul became "all things to all -people" (1 Cor. 9:22) - Jews, Gentiles, the weak.
In our mission, we are confronted inescapably every day with poverty, sickness, and distress. We can never close our hearts to the never-ending poverty and need of so many. They are hungry and robbed of a fair chance of developing their human potential. We cannot close out doors to those who do not have a regular roof over their heads or sufficient clothes to wear, to those who are ill because the most basic health care is lacking here, to those who despair of being able to care for their families because they have no employment. All of this presses in upon us and leaves us no peace. It is
an economic and political system that gives privilege to the rich and drives the great masses of the poor into ever deeper misery. The problem is much bigger than out mission; it extends over entire continents.
What can we change about all of this? We feel out own complete powerlessness -the powerlessness of the Lord on the cross. As Missionaries of the Precious Blood this is where we should be - at the place where the members of Christ's body are nailed to the cross today. Through our dedication and our deeds we must be signs of hope. The Precious Blood of Christ is redemption, resurrection, triumph over evil. It is love and new life - we need to learn this from the poor. In faithfulness to the Lord "the Church must be the Church of the poor," as our Pope John Paul 11 has said.
Efforts to develop a local clergy were urgent from the beginning. Already forty years ago we opened an Apostolic School, a pre-seminary, located in the old Fathers' house that was also used partially as a chicken coop. A man from the hinterland entrusted his small son to me with the charge to see that he would become a priest, a physician, or a truck driver. But it is not that simple. We can only prepare the field and do the sowing. The growth and increase are in the hand of God. There have been many years of sowing, marked by disappointment and failure. Setbacks and frustration seemed to make all out efforts worthless. We move ahead, we pray, and we place our great concern in God's hand. "Pray the Lord of die harvest to send workers into the field."
Our first task as rnissionaries who come from "foreign countries" is to plant the local church and get it on its own feet. In this regard something has happened in all these years. We have today already five local diocesan priests and a deacon who will be ordained priest soon. We await hopefully vocations for out Congregation. Mission being able to wait. The results cannot be mechanically determined with a fixed year of outcome.

Experiences of a missionary

A profound experience for me as a missionary has been our Settlement project LOTAP (Loteamento Aparecida), which I have led and administered for 24 years. The mission does not restrict itself only to pastoral and sacramental activity in the narrow sense. It also sets us before tasks in the area of social and charitable needs that we had not planned upon. On the edge of the city of Altamira, on a piece of land owned by the Prelature, more than 13OO plots for needy families were to be made accessible. This - was to be done systematically, planned and with legal documentation, to prevent invasion by others and the creation of future squatter settlements. With help from Europe we were able to build 230 simple homes for very poor families. In the flood plains the heavy bush was cleared out. Through careful planning some 150 brick kilns were able to be opened. Dozens of poor famaies are still working there. Fotr most of them it is their only income.
Managing this project brought me up close with these people. You get involved with saints and scoundrels, with murderers and thieves, will the healthy and the sick, with child-like illiterates and crafty speculators, with prostitutes and drug peddlers. Mission is everywhere, for the Lord came to heal to seek out those who were lost. "He wishes that all might be saved and brought to the knowledge of the truth." (I Tim 2:4)
A special kind of experience that I have been privileged to have during the years is contact with the Indians, the original inhabitants of our mission territory. With two-week periodic visits I have been able to stay in the Aldeia (Indian villages), in visits of
friendship, of getting to know the historical and dramatic situation of these tribes of people. For a young missionary this strange, mysterious world brought all kinds of adventurous experiences: weeks of travel through the wilderness, breath-taking trips through river rapids, exotic dances around the camp fire of the Indians. But all of that does not measure up to the soul-crushing experience of seeing how these original inhabitants of Brazil have fated today at the hands of the so-called "Christian civilization."
Greed, money, the quest of precious minerals And valuable wood do not give way before hereditary rights and cultures that are thousands of years old. They will survive only thanks to their ancient traditions and their tenacious resistance.
And our mission? Where we, with two priests and two sisters in this gigantic jungle territory over which eighteen tribes are scattered ? When Jesus saw the crowds, he was full of compassion, "for they were like sheep without a shepherd." (Mark 6 -.34) As missionaries we are not even spared this dolorous experience of a lack of personnel for the mission itself.
To be a missionary has been, through the years, a grace, a gift from God. Despite
the happy and bitter experiences that life brings we never become our own masters. As
missionaries we are always pupils - "discipulos." The disciple follows 'in the footsteps
of the master. Because of his human weakness and limitations the disciple never stops learning, never stops beginning -anew. The invitation to follow Jesus includes the invitation to participate in his persecution and in his cross. The missionary ---basically all the baptized --- are sent out "as sheep among the wolves." (Mt 10 :16). Mission also means sacrifice, persecution, and the cross, however these might take shape in our lives.