2023-09-17 14:34:09
God loved the world so much. Little theology of the mission
by Jean-Marc Aveline
Cerf, 158 p., 15 €
All theological reflection should begin with a human reality. Before developing in this short work a “little theology of mission”, Cardinal Jean-Marc Aveline recalls his own itinerary. Archbishop of Marseille, he is above all a child of the Mediterranean. Born on December 26, 1958 in Sidi Bel-Abbès, Algeria, he does not forget his ancestors who, in the 19th century, crossed the Mediterranean in the hope of living decently in this part of North Africa: “Four generations of our family had found in Algeria, if not wealth, at least the happiness of a simple life. »
In 1962, it was the opposite path, arriving in the Phocaean city. A laborious daily life, the death of a little sister aged 7 months, and this indelible mark of having to leave his land. “I am more aware of the particular vocation of the “pied-noir” people (…) These uprooted people know that we rarely leave our country with joy of heart. He knows from experience the suffering of all migration, and feels in his flesh how love for his native land can never be torn from a man’s heart. »
However, this book does not once again alert us to the drama playing out in the Mediterranean. In three parts, Cardinal Aveline develops a vision of the mission which involves the place left to the other, which shakes up certainties and invites trust. Nourished by interreligious experience, this practical theology of the Archbishop of Marseille has as its obligatory passage dialogue in “neighborhood relations”. “This evangelical closeness should be the first signature of Christians in their way of being in the world,” he emphasizes, taking the example of the monks of Tibhirine, in Algeria. Far from opposing the mission, dialogue is an integral part of it. A dialogue that develops in “the urgency of a charity which constantly urges us and the patience of a fraternity which is slowly being woven”.
A spiritual attitude
Denouncing as well “ambient relativism” what « dominant identity »the author insists on the mobilization of the faithful: in his eyes, the concern to entrust the Gospel “must never weaken in the conscience of Christians. » Starting from fraternal initiatives in the northern districts of Marseille, the cardinal defines the road map for meeting the other: “It is in this spiritual attitude of dialogue, without desire for power, nor threat, nor contempt, that the Church invites all people to join its pilgrimage towards the Kingdom. »
This experience of dialogue is particularly at play with today’s Jews, heirs of the same biblical promise. Second, slightly denser part of the work, it allows the author to invite people to share: “What unites us, Jews and Christians, what we experience in the secret of our hearts or in the clamor of our liturgies, is absolutely more important than what separates us. » Finally, third “decentering” proposed for the mission, for the Church it is a question of “become aware of the universal scope of the message of which it is the guardian”. The reflection of Jean-Marc Aveline developed in this book is nourished by the meeting of the churches of the Mediterranean Basin in Marseille in September 2023, work that Pope Francis encourages with his visit.
The third Meetings make the Mediterranean countries a sort of mission laboratory: “It is by listening to the clamor of the poor that (the Church) opens to the clamor of the earth, not out of ecological fashion but out of Catholic concern for the whole of creation. » An affirmed catholicity which does not generate a desire for conquest but which is conceived as the fruit of an open dialogue. Like the mission of a bishop, as the cardinal defines it: “Serve communion in the Church and work for brotherhood in the world. »
Missionary zeal
Theological foundation of action more than pastoral program, this essay lays the foundations of a Church at the heart of the world which would be governed by love. This is the ambition of this book, written “in order to encourage today’s disciples of Christ, especially young people, to find in the love with which God loves the world the most solid foundation and the most invincible hope of their missionary zeal”.
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