The Spirit Is Present and Active in Every Time and Place

Though in a special way present in believers, the Spirit is at work in the heart of every person, in all times and in all places, stirring and affecting not only individuals, but also society and history, sowing the seeds of the word, preparing them for full maturity in Christ.
The Holy Spirit was already at work before Christ was glorified (AG 4), filling the world and holding all things together (cf. Wis 1:7). This fact guided me in meetings, like the one in Assisi, confirming my conviction that ”every authentic prayer is prompted by the Holy Spirit, who is mysteriously present in every human heart. This is the same Spirit who was at work in the incarnation in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and who is at work in the church. The universal activity of the Spirit is not to be separated from the Spirit at work in the church, in those who have the responsibility of discerning it.

Missionary Activity Is Only Beginning

Our own time asks for the resurgence of the church’s missionary activity. We have been celebrating recently all kinds of mission milleniums and centenaries; we must now face the new challenges.

Commentary:
The Spirit pervades all of society and history

Even before Christ was incarnated as man in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Spirit already existed and was the one that turned all of the chaos into a mysteriously ordered universe. If the Holy Spirit existed before time even came to be, then it is but natural to think that He is present in the minds and hearts of all the peoples He created and breathed life into.

This I believe is the basis for the new mission theology and spirituality influencing our present day mission programs. Whereas before, the Church started her mission under the philosophy that God was to be brought to pagan minds and hearts; today, that philosophy has changed to mean that the Church goes to the people to help them discover the elements which are nascently Christian already in their cultures and traditions - elements that are life-giving and life-propagating. A careful study of these life-giving elements will slowly reveal how it can be Christianized in its substance and essence. However, these life-giving elements are not purely Christian because of the human traditions in that culture - traditional elements that are not in accord with Christian values. Nevertheless, they can be either purified or transformed to represent more Christian realities through the creativity of symbolisms and metaphoric language that can be applied liturgically in the homilies and the prayers of the faithful or the offertory. This process of seeing the Christian element already present in a human culture and purifying them to be more in line with traditional Catholic tradition and symbolism is called inculturation.

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