A STORY: "From the Depth I Cry To You".

It was early December 1997. I was invited to be a facilitator in a training session for human right activists in East Timor. There were 24 participants. During the first three days the interaction process was very difficult. There was too much feeling of anger, resentment, suspicion and woundedness which blocked the process. So one of my colleagues asked if I could lead a prayer service and sharing where the participants could express their traumatic feelings. In the evening we gathered in a small chapel. All of us sat on the floor in a circle. In the middle we lit a candle. It was an Advent candle. We read the beautiful text of Isaiah 35 which announced the coming of the Lord to save his people. We also read Isaiah 65: 17-25 about the new heavens and new earth. Then I asked the participants to share. Several of them talked and we listened. Then a woman, a very thin woman, stood up, walked to the middle, sat beside the candle and told us a long story of suffering. Her name was Alexandrina. We called her Adina.

When she was about 6 years old her parents were arrested by the Indonesian soldiers. Since then she never saw them again. Some eyewitness said that they were shot in the forest. Adina was left behind with her elder brother who had joined the Fretelin freedom fighters struggling for the independence of East Timor. Some years later her brother was captured by the Indonesian soldiers. They tortured him, cut off his penis, and let him slowly die a horrible death. Adina wept bitterly over the death of her only brother, but she swore to herself to continue the struggle. When Adina was in senior high school, the military arrested her while giving food to a young man who came to the village. They accused her of being a collaborator of Fretelin. They tortured her until she was half conscious and raped her.

At this point Adina could not continue her story. Tears filled our eyes. There was a long silence in the chapel. I do not know how long, but it seemed like ages. Then Adina gathered all her strength, see looked at me and said in a faint voice: "Father, where is that salvation promised by the Lord?" Again there was silence. I could not answer her question. Tears flowed. Slowly I raised my eyes and saw a wooden cross on the wall. I saw it and understood the solidarity of the Crucified One, but I could not utter a single word. Adina needed my solidarity, not my word. For several years I have been living with her question.

1. INTRODUCTION

First of all I would like to thank the conveners for inviting me to speak about missio ad gentes from an Asian perspective. Let me say from the very beginning that I am not a missiologist by profession. I am a member of a missionary congregation which is involved in missionary work and reflection. The conveners could have invited some well-known missiologist to give a better theological presentation. But they preferred instead to invite somebody else to give information and reflection about mission from a less known corner of the Church, from Indonesia. Let me start by clarifying some presuppositions implied in the title chosen for this presentation: "Missio Ad Gentes: An Asian Way of Mission Today".

1.1.Mission

There are different paradigms used in speaking about mission. The model used in this presentation is the paradigm of the Reign of God. Mission is first of all "missio Dei" God's self-communication and saving act which stretches from creation to new creation. The mission of the Church is a participation in this saving act of the Triune God, namely in the love of the Father made known in Christ Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit . Since Vatican II we have become more aware that the Reign of God is a reality deeper and more extensive than the Church. The Church's mission is nothing else than giving witness to the Reign of God, to its universality and openness, which embraces all humanity i.e. all nations and cultures throughout the history. As a sacrament of salvation in God's hand the Church can no longer claim that it monopolizes the whole truth and salvation as it once did. Once we acknowledge that the Reign of God is greater than the Church, then we become more open to recognize what God has done to different peoples, in various cultures and religions. The first act of mission is, therefore, listening with full respect to what God has done to others. This kind of awareness will certainly influence and transform our way of mission.

1.2. "Ad Gentes"

When we speak about "missio ad gentes" in our time, who are supposed to be the gentes, the addressees of Church's mission today? At a certain period of history when the missionaries were urged by zeal and conviction that "extra ecclesiam nulla salus", then gentes meant all those people who did not belong to the Church, who were supposed to live in the darkness of sin and incredulity and who were therefore destined to perdition. But our understanding of mission has radically changed. We realize that God's saving act has been present and continuous to be present throughout history, in various cultures and religions of all peoples .

Two things are implied in the proposition that the reality of God's Reign is deeper and greater than the Church. On the one hand we believe that the Reign of God is actively present within the Church but is not identical with the Church. There are elements within the Church which are contrary to the values of the Kingdom and therefore need purification and redemption. On the other hand we acknowledge that people of different faith communities, of different cultures and religions in one way or another have experienced the saving act of God. Of course they are also in need of full redemption and ultimate salvation. Mission is no longer a one way traffic. We as Christians give witness to the Reign according to our faith-experience of God, but others too give witness to saving act of God in their midst.

With regard to the Church can we still speak about her missio ad gentes? Yes, but with a significant qualification! Gentes are people who do not belong to Christian community but they are not outside of God's loving embrace. As we Christians give witness and proclaim the Reign of God to the gentes, they also tell us about their own faith-experience of God. Understood in this way missio ad gentes is at the same time missio de gentibus. The Hindus, the Buddhists, the Moslems, the Confucians, the followers of Tao, the adherents of cosmic religions, the humanists and others can share with us their faith-experience of God and the fundamental values of their life. Mission requires as its prerequisite our readiness to listen to others and a sincere openness to share our faith with them. In the ideal cases where people of different faith communities work together in our common struggle for justice, peace, solidarity, reconciliation, love (to name some values of God's Reign) in order to build a greater communion of the scattered children of God (Jn. 11:52), then missio ad gentes is missio cum gentibus.

1.3. Asia

Asia is a name for a pluralistic reality. It is home to nearly two third of the world's population with their different cultures, languages, customs, beliefs, traditions, social structures, political systems. It is impossible to characterize Asian peoples in general with the same cultural or social category. If, for instance, one describes Asian peoples using socio-cultural characteristics like "tolerance", "complementarity and harmony", another can easily contradict this statement by showing that the bloodiest ethnic and religious conflicts have been occurring all the time in different parts of Asia. The political panorama in Asia is also highly complex, ranging from democratic systems to military dictatorships, from secular models to theocratic governments. From the socio-economic point of view we find in this continent a whole range of social classes with an enormous gap between the poorest of the poor to the richest of the rich. Related to this social gap is the problem of population growth, urbanization, migration, the global market economy, malnutrition and hunger (to mention only a few). The reality of the poor in Asia remains a great challenge for humanity and a criticism to all our theology and ideology.

Asia is also the cradle of the world's major religions and spiritual traditions: Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Shintoism, Zoroastrianism, Jainism, Sikhism. Christianity in Asia is a very tiny minority living among the people of other faith communities. With the exception of the Philippines, the Church in Asia is the Church in diaspora . These small communities in diaspora have experienced many tensions, conflicts and persecutions, but they have also learned how to live peacefully with other faith communities, practicing a concrete "dialogue of life" with others for the common good of the whole society.

This sketchy picture should be enough to remind us that Asia is very pluralistic. And this pluralism is aggravated further by the contemporary post-modern condition, where, for some people at least : "Truth, humanitarianism, and justice now exist only in the plural. Therefore there is no longer a universal and definitively valid religion" . This is a great challenge for mission in Asia and indeed for the mission of the whole Church.

Given such a pluralistic situation, it is more reasonable that I start from the mission experience of the Catholic Church in my own country as part of the Asian experience and then refer from time to time to some similar experiences in other Asian countries.

2. MISSION IN INDONESIA: A SHORT HISTORICAL NOTE

When the Portuguese and Spanish sailors went to the East in the 15th and 16th century in search for spices, some Catholic missionaries came along with them. The most famous of them is St. Francis Xavier who worked in India, Malaysia and Indonesia (in the Moluccas Islands) before sailing north to Japan. Portuguese missionaries established some Christian communities on the islands of Flores, Timor, and the Moluccas. In the early 17th century, however, Dutch colonialists took over the Indonesian archipelago from the Portuguese. They were Calvinists. And according to the reigning principle in Europe at that time, "cuius regio, illius religio", they banned Catholicism for about 200 years. Only Protestant missionaries were allowed to come in this period. After the declaration of religious freedom in Europe as one of the consequences of the French Revolution, Catholic missionaries were able to come again at the beginning of the 19th century. When they arrived on the island of Flores, they were astonished to discover that the Catholic faith was still alive. In a small town of Larantuka people continued to tell the stories from the Bible from generation to generation and they prayed the rosary in Portuguese. By telling biblical stories (with imaginative additions) and praying the rosary they managed to keep the Catholic faith alive.

In general, however, the Catholic communities in Indonesia were established only in the 20th C. So the Catholic Church in Indonesia is still very young. Of the 210 million people of Indonesia at this time the Catholics are about 3.5 %, Christians of various denominations 6,5 %, Islam 87 % (the biggest Moslem population in the world). The rest are Hindus (in Bali), Buddhists, and Confucianists.

From 1850 onwards many Catholic missionaries came from Europe, worked, and even dedicated their whole life for people in many islands of Indonesia. Their names remain alive in the heart of the people. In 1978, however, the Indonesian government took a drastic measure to ban foreign missionaries. Astonishingly, since then more and more young people, men and women, joined religious and missionary congregations. To give one example: In the missionary congregation of the SVD (Societas Verbi Divini = Society of The Divine Word), whose members are working in 62 countries, Indonesian members constitute about 22 %. Together with their confreres from India, Philippines, Japan, China, Vietnam and some other countries Asian SVD members constitute about 50 % of the entire congregation. There are many vocations for other religious congregations as well. So it is almost a paradoxical situation that from Asia where Christianity is a tiny minority come so many religious vocations. Besides these missionaries who belong to religious congregations there are also many lay missionaries who work as catechists, teachers, social workers, pastoral assistants and so on.

If we now compare the situation of European missionary pioneers who came to Indonesia and contemporary Asian missionaries who are sent to work in other countries, including in Europe and Americas, we can see a significant difference. In general terms we may say that European missionaries came to Indonesia from a position of superiority. First of all, political superiority: They came from a colonizing country to a colonized country. This fact alone gave them a certain powerful status and authority. This authority was further assured by a special commission by the highest Church hierarchy for "plantatio ecclesiae" in the colonized region. They also enjoyed protection and certain privileges granted to them by colonial government. This does not mean that they always supported or collaborated with the colonial government. On the contrary! In the case of Indonesia they often stood at the side of the local people, learned local languages and cultures, promoted education through schools, improved health care, and defended the rights of the indigenous people.

Secondly, cultural superiority. They came from a developed country to the so-called underdeveloped country. And as children of their epoch they assumed that the Western model of modern civilization was the ideal model for humanity. For this reason they built schools, centers of training and education using the standard and curriculum of Europe. They were also financially supported by Christian communities in their home countries for many social projects.

Thirdly, religious superiority. The missionary pioneers from Europe knew very well that they were commissioned by the hierarchy in the name of the Lord in order to preach the Gospel, to baptize people and to make them members of the Church, and thus bring salvation to those who lived in the darkness of sin and unbelief. Inspired by the conviction that there was no salvation outside the Church, they dedicated their life to this missionary goal with vigor and militancy. Closely connected to this feeling of religious superiority was the monolithic model of theology in the Catholic Church, with the assumption that the truth of the Christian faith had been formulated once and for all in the dogmas of the Church. The missionaries then knew exactly what they had to preach to others. They learned the local language and culture in order to convey the Christian doctrine which had been formulated. Due to this conviction of religious superiority they tended to disregard and sometimes even destroyed mythic-religious elements of the traditional religions.

Now the mission situation has changed. In the last 20 years the former mission countries like India, Philippines, Indonesia have become mission-sending countries, while Europe has come to be seen as a new mission continent as well. Or to put it more exactly: The 'locus' of mission nowadays is understood no longer so much in terms of geographical territory as in terms of specific missionary situations which can be found anywhere, in all the continents . Can we imagine what happens when missionaries from the small island of Flores in Indonesia, from Bohol in the Philippines, or from Tamilnadu in India are sent to work in Europe or the Americas? What kind of superiority do they have? Nothing. They seem to go empty handed. And the situation has become much more difficult for them because we are now living in a pluralistic world where the monolithic model of theology has been abandoned. The very fact that they are sent empty handed is their weakness and their strength at the same time. Did not Jesus send his first disciples empty handed? This new situation will characterize the Asian way of mission as will be explained later.

3. AN ASIAN WAY OF MISSION

During the 14th General Chapter of the Divine Word Missionaries in Nemi, Rome, 1994, a European confrere raised the following question to the capitulars from the Asia-Pacific Zone: "As the majority of our membership is shifting from Europe to Asia, how do you give an Asian face and an Asian spirit to our mission?" This was an important question and it remains very significant. On many occasions we have been reflecting, sharing, discussing about this. What I am going to present here is the result of this common process of reflection among our missionaries in the Asia-Pacific zone and further in the SVD General Chapter.

3.1. Dialogue As The Way of Mission

Christianity in Asia in about 3 % of the whole population. If we take out the Philippines as an exceptional case then Christians are only about 1.2 %. This is really a very small minority scattered among billions of people of other religions and convictions. This experience of living as tiny groups in diaspora cannot but teach Christians in Asia how to live with others. Many a time there have been conflicts, tensions, persecutions. And yet each time Christians learn how to survive, how to interact and to live side by side with other faith communities. More than that, they have also positive experience of meeting many good people of other faith, people with spiritual wisdom and authentic religiosity. This kind of encounter teaches them something about dialogue in a very concrete way. Long before the Federation of Asian Bishops' Conferences (FABC) began to speak officially about the threefold dialogue , people had already learned how to dialogue through their actions and life.

Dialogue presupposes two things. On the subjective level it presupposes that I respect the other person as a subject with autonomy and freedom as myself. From this perspective dialogue is the basic attitude of respectful listening to others and of openness to communicate oneself to others. On the objective level it presupposes that every person and every human community has some valuable experience of the ultimate meaning of life which they can share with others. If I from my part am convinced that I can share my faith or my experience of the ultimate meaning of life in God with others, I must be prepared to listen to the others as well. The ultimate Truth is always greater than my own experience and knowledge, and no one, no institution, can claim to possess the whole truth.

Understood as basic attitude of being open to others, dialogue is the only viable way of mission.

Two objections can be raised. (In fact these objections were already raised during an international meeting of missionaries). The first objection says that there is a priority of preaching the Good News. In other words, we have to proclaim the Gospel first and then dialogue. It seems to me that this objection tends to reduce the meaning of dialogue to discussion. If, as we said, dialogue is the basic attitude of being open to others, then dialogue does not contradict the proclamation of the Gospel at all. What is necessary is that we proclaim the Good News in a dialogical way, not primarily by words but by our life. As St. Francis of Assisi used to say: "Always preach, if necessary use words". If God respects human freedom in his act of salvation, how can we pretend to proclaim the Good News without respecting the others or without listening to their experience?

The second objection says: "You cannot dialogue with the oppressors". If this were true, what would be the alternative? Either you submit yourselves to the oppression (which is an immoral act) or you take arms to kill the oppressors, which means using violence against violence. I believe that we ought to dialogue even with the oppressors in order to break the circle of violence. In politics we have some shining examples of people like Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Aung San Suu Kyi, Nelson Mandela. Their lives have become a prophetic affirmation that only dialogue can transform the vicious circle of violence into a virtuous circle of justice, forgiveness, reconciliation and peace. Dialogue is another name for the Gospel message and appeal to love even your enemy.

The Christian attitude of dialogue in mission is more appropriately expressed in terms of "prophetic dialogue" . A prophet listens and proclaims the Word of God. In the proclamation of the Word, the prophet also criticizes injustice and evil elements in society which are contrary to the will of God, with the consequence that the prophet might undergo persecution and suffering. The same is true with dialogue in mission. What we are supposed to do is to listen, follow, witness and proclaim the Word of God. However, since we believe that God has spoken also to other peoples of other cultures and religions, mission means first of all listening to the Word of God coming to me through others. I let myself be addressed, be enriched, criticized and purified from my ideological and idolatrous attitude in the encounter with others. On the other hand, as far as I understand and am inspired by the Word of God coming to me through Gospel within the Christian community, I share the richness of my faith-experience, I criticize the injustice and all evil elements in culture and society which enslave people, which are contrary to the will of God. At this point prophetic dialogue in mission has a risky side. It is possible that a missionary, like a prophet, has to undergo persecution and martyrdom because of his or her mission.

Who are the addresser and the addressee of mission dialogue? If the Church is missionary by its nature, then every Christian community is the addresser of mission. However, within the Christian communities there are people who in a very special way dedicate themselves to mission and therefore are called missionaries. These people are sent in the name of the Lord by the Christian communities and they in turn remind Christian communities of their missionary call. The missionaries are the addressers of mission par excellence. However, if mission is a dialogical process, then every addresser is at the same time an addressee and vice versa.

We need further to clarify the addressees or our partners in missio ad gentes. For many years FABC has spoken about the threefold dialogue, namely dialogue with people of other cultures, with people of different religions and with the poor. Recently, however, the Divine Word Missionaries added another aspect and so speak of a "fourfold prophetic dialogue".

a). The first aspect is dialogue with faith seekers and people who have no faith community. In our contemporary world there are more and more people who do not belong to any faith community. In France, for instance, 47 % of the population describe themselves as a-religious or atheists; in Germany 38 % . (I do not know the statistical data about the situation in Asia, but I presume that in Mainland China many people have been estranged from any faith community). In mission we reach out to all these people through our life and service, giving witness to the Reign of God's love. If they respond with interest, we welcome them to become members of our Christian communities and the followers of Jesus. We have to remember, however, that for missionaries from Asia working in Europe it is much more difficult to reach out to those new a-religious people in the post-Christian era. These people may criticize the Church and challenge us to live our faith more authentically. We need to listen to them because, as Ricoeur has shown, even atheists can help to purify our faith if we take an appropriate attitude towards their criticism .

b). Dialogue with the poor and marginalized.

In many parts of Asia Christians live among a great mass of very poor people. Mission among the poor means being in solidarity with them, participating in their life and their struggle for a more just and humane society. From their part the poor offer us an opportunity to undergo a radical conversion. As Pieris puts it: "The poor (the destitute, the dispossessed, the displaced and the discriminated) who form the bulk of Asian peoples, plus their specific brand of cosmic religiosity constitute a school where many Christian activists re-educate themselves in the art of speaking the language of God's reign, which is the language of liberation which God speaks through Jesus. Neither the academic nor the pastoral magisterium is conversant with this evangelical idiom".

c). Dialogue with people of different cultures.

The main issue in the dialogue with people of different cultures is the inculturation of the Gospel and the evangelization of culture, which are two aspects of the same missionary dialogue. For many centuries in the Catholic Church the universality (catholicity) of the Church tended to be identified with the uniformity of doctrines (formulated in dogmas), of rites and laws. Only after the Vatican II has there been a great movement of inculturation in order to 'incarnate' the Gospel message into different languages and cultures. People now listen to the Gospel in their own language, they sing and dance and celebrate their life of faith according to their own culture. The inculturation of theology is more difficult. It is a long-term project. Only from the authentic praxis of faith can follow a local and original theological reflection because theology is nothing else but a critical reflection on our life of faith. How can we now envisage the relation between the particularity of the local Church and the catholicity of the universal Church? First of all, I assume that what we call "universal Church" is the ecclesia ecclesiarum, the communion of Christian communities in the Lord. I propose therefore to use the paradigm of art in order to better understand the relation between particularity and universality. In the case of art if somebody simply copies the work of another artist, he or she is not a real artist but an epigon. It is a paradoxical truth of art that the more unique and original a work of art is, the more universal value it has. I think the same thing can be said about the particularity and universality of the Church. The more authentic and original the life of faith in the local Churches, the more universal (catholic) value can it contribute to the communion of the Church. If, however, the local Church simply imitates what is done in Rome, then it is an imitation Church, not yet an authentic Church rooted in the local soil.

On the other hand, every culture contains the elements of alienation, the elements which enslave people and which do not promote the well-being of humanity. The message of the Gospel is, therefore, a prophetic criticism and spiritual contribution to the life of a particular culture so that culture may become the celebration of human life before God.

d). Dialogue with people of other religions.

All great religions teach about justice, peace, solidarity, compassion, love. And yet we have learned from history that there has been a lot of enmity, hatred, conflicts, and wars among people of different religions. Many factors (social, political, racial etc) may play their role in provoking such conflicts. But from religious point of view, the main reason is because the adherents of religion tend to absolutize it as if it possesses the whole truth and salvation. If we acknowledge that the Reign of God is greater than any religion and that other people in one way or another have experienced the love of God, then we would be more open to dialogue and collaboration.

Inter-religious dialogue can take various forms which together may constitute a 'virtuous circle'. The first form is dialogue of life where people of various religions live together in the same society with tolerance and respect for each other. Secondly, through dialogue of action they collaborate on some concrete projects such as helping the victims of natural disaster, promoting human rights, improving education for poor children and so on. Thirdly, people of different religions can also pray together and share their faith. To give one example: After the big riot in Jakarta, May 13-15, 1998, where 1190 people were killed, women activists of different religions (Islam, Christian, Hinduism, Buddhism) organized several prayer meetings where they openly denounced the act of violence and prayed together for justice, reconciliation and peace in a wounded nation. Finally there can be dialogue on the theological or doctrinal level. Here very often we have institutional obstacles. For this reason a group of Islamic, Christian, Hindu and Buddhist theologians in Indonesia formed a forum of interfaith dialogue, where each participant is supposed to speak from his or her own personal reflection without officially representing any institution.

Dialogue of life and action paves the way for theological dialogue. In its turn theological dialogue should enlighten and promote dialogue of life and action.

Through creative inter-religious dialogue we may hope that people of various religious traditions can work together for a new spirituality which can inspire human beings in a post-modern world.

3.2. Mission from the Position of Weakness

In comparison to the former missionaries from Europe, the Asian missionaries today seem to be sent empty handed. This fact is their weakness and should be their strength as well.

First of all, it is their weakness. Many of them come from a rural background with their cultural heritage in the pre-modern worldview. But very soon they enter into the modern world through education and schools. Now they are further confronted with the post-modern condition. They live in tensions between three worldviews which are not easy to harmonize. These missionaries need much more time than their predecessors not simply to learn another language and culture but also to orient themselves within the tensions and conflicts between those worldviews.

And what can they concretely do in their mission? We know that former missionaries preached the Gospel, taught catechism, and baptized people; but they were also actively involved in education, health care, and in promoting social and economic development. All these were considered integral part of their mission. Today many of these jobs have been taken over by the state or secular institutions. When new missionaries are sent from Asia to Europe or America they cannot get involved in these fields. Even in teaching catechism or preaching many local people can do better than they.

From the religious perspective, former missionaries went to the countries where mythic-religious values were still predominant, whereas new missionaries are thrown into secularistic society. It is much more difficult to preach the Gospel in the post-Christian situation.

On the other hand, this kind of weakness can and should be the strength of the new missionaries. Here is a golden opportunity to follow the example of the first disciples of Jesus who were sent empty handed but who were inspired by the Spirit of the Crucified and Risen Lord. The empty handed approach is therefore possible if their heart is full of faith, with the willingness to serve others as the Lord Jesus. Through the Spirit of the Lord human weakness (in socio-political sense) is transformed into evangelical kenosis. This approach becomes efficacious and fruitful on two preconditions. First, it presupposes that the missionaries believe in the people to whom they are sent. If you have nothing in your hand, and if you do not have any kind of superiority, then you have to rely on the people to whom you are sent. Missionaries are expected to work not simply for the people (from a position of superiority), but to work with the people. Above all, this approach presupposes that missionaries believe in the One who calls and sends them. "I am with you always to the end of time" (Mt. 28:20).

3.3. Mission from a Contemplative Presence.

The rabbis in Israel, the Gurus in Hindu and Buddhist traditions, the spiritual leaders in the Islamic pesantren in Indonesia, do not teach their disciples like modern teachers or professors in the classroom. They attract their followers by their life before inspiring them with their wisdom. Actually this is what happened with Jesus and his disciples and later with the spiritual and religious movements in the history of the Church. Now if missionaries have nothing in their hands, then they have to carry out their mission from a contemplative presence. By contemplation we do not mean simply a method of prayer or meditation. Contemplation means living in intimate union with God. Since missionaries have to witness to the Reign and to proclaim the Word of God, they need first of all to experience the presence of God in their lives and listen to the Word addressed to them through the Bible and through others. Every authentic mission flows from contemplation, just as every poetic word is born out of silence. Mission without contemplation would be empty; contemplation without mission would be lame and mute.

Mission and contemplation are two fundamental aspects of Christian life. Hence those who live in the contemplative orders are called to be missionaries in silence like Theresa of Lisieux. Whereas missionaries who are actively working with people have to practice a "contemplatio in via" like Theresa of Calcutta.

Although what has been said is valid for all Christians, its urgency is felt all the more by those who are carrying their mission from the position of weakness.

We may express the same thing by using other terminologies, like "passing over" and "communion". Christian life is rooted in the communion with the Triune God and with our brothers and sisters within our small communities. Mission is passing-over to people of other cultures, other social classes, other religions and convictions in order to gather the scattered children of God into a greater and deeper communion.

3.4. Mission that needs a Narrative Theology

Until now in many countries in Asia moral and religious values are told in myths and stories. The revelation of God's Word in the Bible is also given in a narrative. Of course there are many literary genres in the Bible. But all the commandments, prohibitions, laws, prayers and others are comprehensible only within the narrative of God's salvation.

For many centuries theology in the Catholic Church in the West has been formulated in dogmatic theology, that is a critical and systematic formulation of faith according to a certain philosophical framework. The advantage of dogmatic theology is that the content of our faith is formulated in a clear and rational way. The disadvantage is that people tend to identify the Word of God with dogmatic contents and thereby reduce the inexhaustible richness of the Word to a certain formulation.

Contemporary hermeneutics and exegesis tell us that the Word of God in the Bible is much richer than any dogmatic content that can be drawn from the biblical text. Christian message is first of all not a doctrine but a narrative of God's saving act, be it in the Exodus or in the story of life, death, and resurrection of Christ. All doctrines are to be understood in relation to the narrative. But every narrative is open to a multiple interpretation. It is in the process of interpretation that a story is decontextualized and recontextualized again and again. The living Word of God is thus reincarnated every time a believing community reads the Bible, appropriates its meaning for itself and puts it into practice in everyday life.

Narrative is all the more important because, as Ricoeur and others have shown, the identity of a person and that of a human community is a narrative identity . Christians read the story of the Gospel and interpret their lives in the light of the Gospel story, and then they weave the story of their life according to the model of the Gospel.

Narrative has another advantage in comparison to dogmatic formulation. If dogmas tend to impose one theological framework on all and therefore is monolithic, narrative, on the contrary, tends to hold the creative tension between unity and plurality. The unity of the same story remains but every time it is understood in a different way, by a different people in a different context.

I have started this presentation by telling the story of Adina. There is an endless number of stories of like this; the stories of the poor, the marginalized, and suffering people in Asia, Africa and else where. Missionaries have to listen to these stories, interpret them within the light of the Gospel narrative, and help transform human tragedy into the Good News of salvation.

4. LIBERATION AND COMMUNION IN THE REIGN OF GOD

The mission of the Church is a participation in the mission of God that goes from creation to new creation. God's saving act has always been present in history. We have experienced it already now and yet we are still hoping for its eschatological fulfillment, that is, the ultimate salvation in the Lord. "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, the first heaven and the first earth had disappeared now, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride dressed for her husband. Then I heard a loud voice call from the throne: 'Look, here God lives among human beings. He will make his home among them; they will be his people and he will be their God, God-with-them. He will wipe away all tears from their eyes; there will be no more death, and no more mourning or sadness or pain. The world of the past has gone'. The One sitting on the throne spoke: 'Look, I am making the whole creation new'. (Rv. 21: 1-5). Is this only an illusion? An empty utopia? If there is no sign at all of its concrete realization, then the Reign of God would be an illusion, and Christianity an opium of people. The Bible, however, offers some signs for discernment. We read for example in Isaiah 65:17-18a;19b-25.

Yahweh says.

This text shows how God's Reign has come in the signs of justice and peace (where children do not die, where the old are taken care of, where people build houses and live in them, they plant vineyards and eat their fruit; the wolf and lamb feed together…).

If I may decipher the signs of God's salvation within the signs of our time, then I would like to indicate two great signs, namely the process of liberation and of communion in various realms of human life.

4.1. The Process of Liberation

After the Second World War there was a great movement of liberation. Many colonized countries in Asia and Africa declared their independence and became free nations. But political independence is only one step in the struggle for greater liberation. In the socio-economic field we can find an emerging process of empowering the poor and the marginalized in the struggle for a more just and humane society. Culturally there is a parallel movement of recognizing the intrinsic value of each culture, thus liberating it from the oppression of other dominating cultures. In the realm of religion there is a similar movement of liberating religion from a rigid and closed institution in order to rediscover it as "a fire of life", as a fundamental inspiration. Within the Catholic Church since Vatican II we find a movement of liberating both lay and clerics. It is a liberation of the lay men and women, in order to reassume their rights and responsibility as full members of the Church, as people of God. At the same time it is liberation of clerics from the hierarchic-pyramidal structure in order to reassume their vocation to be servants of God's people following the example of Jesus. Various movements of women can be situated within this process of liberation.

It is within this great movement of liberation that we have to decipher the presence of God who has revealed himself in the Bible as the One who liberates his people from all kinds of slavery. If this is true, then mission would mean reaching out to people of other cultures, religions and convictions, joining hands with them in the struggle for greater freedom.

But liberation for what? With this we pass to the second great process.

4.2. The Process of Communion

Our contemporary world is marked by globalization, a great process of transforming our world into a global village. But globalization often means domination of the powerful and the rich over those who are weak and poor. I prefer, therefore, to decipher God's saving act in a more positive sign which I call "communion". In politics we see how independent nations join the United Nations and other international associations, while acknowledging the Declaration of Human Rights as one important document of humanity. Unfortunately in the socio-economic field we still have an enormous gap between rich and poor countries. Nevertheless, there is also a growing international awareness (among others through the network of NGO's) that if we let this gap widen and widen, we will end up in a catastrophe for all humanity. Through the ecological movement we have come to realize that we are all living in a very small planet called "Earth" where water, land, air, and all natural resources are limited. For this reason there has been more international collaboration for the preservation of the ecological system. There is also a greater communion in human knowledge, in scientific research, all in quest for truth and wisdom. Finally in religion we find a growing desire and increasing attempts for inter-religious dialogue and ecumenism, in spite of all contrary signs of fundamentalism and religious fanaticism.

In all these signs we may decipher the basic yearning of the human heart for communion and a sign of God's call to all of us. The Lord our God is a Triune God who calls us all into communion with him and with each other. Mission is reaching out to others beyond social, cultural, and religious boundaries for the sake of greater communion of all in the Lord.

Through both process of liberation and communion we discern the saving acts of God within our contemporary world. Liberation without communion tends to divide and scatter; communion without liberation tends to dominate and oppress. In concrete situations, however, these great signs should be deciphered and actualized more concretely in acts of solidarity, of defending the rights of marginalized, of helping the victims, of resolving the conflicts, of healing the wounds, of reconciliation and so on. Missionaries are participants in all these, illuminating them with the light of the Gospel. They give witness that the Reign of God is actively present among us through all these signs and yet we are still hoping for its ultimate fulfillment when "God will be all in all" (1 Co 15:28). "Look, I am doing something new", says the Lord, "now it emerges; can you not see it?" (Is 43:19).