Missionaries transform world by transforming lives, pope says

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Being a missionary means bringing the Gospel and its values into the world and transforming the lives of individuals, which can and must transform societies, Pope Leo XIV said.

In a message to the National Missionary Congress of Mexico, the pope said that wherever the missionaries preached, "the faith flourished and with it, culture, education and charity."

"Thus, little by little, the dough continued to ferment, and the Gospel became bread capable of feeding the deepest hunger of that people," he told participants in the congress, which was being held in Puebla Nov. 6-9.

In Mexico and elsewhere, the pope said, "the Gospel did not erase what it found; it transformed it. The extraordinary richness of the inhabitants of those lands -- their languages, symbols, customs and hopes -- was kneaded together with the faith until the Gospel took root in their hearts and blossomed in works of holiness and unique beauty."

Pope Leo said the 17th-century bishop of Puebla, Blessed Juan de Palafox Mendoza, was the model of "a pastor and missionary who understood his ministry as service and leaven."

His example, the pope said, "challenges the pastors of today for he teaches that to govern is to serve, to form seriously is to evangelize and that all authority, when exercised according to Christ's standard, becomes a source of communion and hope."

In his life and writings, he said, Blessed Palafox "shows us that the true missionary does not dominate but loves; does not impose but serves; and does not use faith to obtain personal advantage -- whether material, of power or of prestige -- but shares the faith as one shares bread."

Today's missionaries, the pope said, must be "the hands of the church that place the leaven of the Risen One into the dough of history, so that hope may once again ferment."

"It is not enough to say, 'Lord, Lord'; we must do the will of the Father," he said. "We must be willing to put our hands into the dough of the world!"

God's kingdom will grow, Pope Leo said, "not by force or by numbers, but through the patience of those who, with faith and love, continue kneading alongside God."