Page 327 - 聖母軍團員手冊（英文版，2014年5月-2022年1月更新版）

Legion HANDBOOK D10944_1 26/02/2014 15:53 Page 322

322 GO PREACH THE GOSPEL CHAPTER 40
“Jesus answered them, ‘Have faith in God. Truly I tell you, if you
say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea’, and if
you do not doubt in your heart, but believe that what you say will
come to pass, it will be done for you. So I tell you, whatever you ask
for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”
(Mk 11:22-24)

7. THE LEGION AS THE COMPLEMENT OF
THE MISSIONARY
The Mission situation
Missionary activity here refers to that directed to peoples
and groups who do not know Christ or believe in him —
among whom the Church has not yet taken root and whose
culture is untouched by Christianity.
In those to be evangelised there exist wide differences in
levels of culture, education and social conditions. Even within
the boundaries of one country, one can find both densely
populated cities and scattered rural communities. There can
be contrasts of rich and poor, highly educated and
unschooled, diversity of ethnic and language groups.
The number of people on the global scale who do not know
Christ is expanding faster than the number of true believers.
Into this vast field enters the missionary: priest, religious or
layperson. Coming from outside, they are hindered by
differences of race, language and culture. Experience and
training will ease but hardly remove these handicaps.
In a newly opened-up territory their task is to establish
local Christian communities which will eventually grow into
self-support ing Churches, intended in turn to evangelise.
Initially, they will endeavour quickly to make a wide range
of contacts and friends. Where possible, they will establish
needed services, such as schools and medical clinics, to give
Christian witness and facilitate contacts. From converts will
be selected catechists and other Church personnel.
The missionary or local catechist can only instruct those
who want it. Creating that desire is, properly speaking,
convert-making. Under God, it normally comes from contact
with a Catholic lay person and only later with a priest. It is a
gradual growth in friend ship and confidence. “I came because
I know a Catholic”, inquirers are wont to tell a priest.
To the hard-pressed missionary, the Legion offers itself as a