All the baptized are called to be apostles and this mission “should not give rise, within the ecclesial body, to privileged categories; nor can it serve as a pretext for forms of inequality” said Pope Francis on 15 March at his general audience.
Continuing with his catechetical cycle on the “passion for evangelization”, the Holy Father recalled that all Christians must be apostles, that is, “sent, in a Church that in the Creed we profess as apostolic”.
The Pope explained that being an apostle is “being sent on a mission” and added that a fundamental aspect of being an apostle “is the vocation, that is, the call.”
Along these lines, he pointed out that the “experience of the Twelve” also challenges us today.”
He assured that “everything depends on a free call from God; God also chooses us for services that sometimes seem to exceed our capacities or do not correspond to our expectations; to the call received as a free gift, it is necessary to respond freely”.
Next, Pope Francis explained that this call “is common” and includes “both those who have received the sacrament of Holy Orders, as well as consecrated persons, as well as every lay faithful, man or woman.”
“You, the treasure that you have received with your Christian vocation, are obliged to give it: it is the dynamism of the vocation, it is the dynamism of life,” he explained.
For this reason, the Holy Father warned that “in the framework of the unity of the mission, the diversity of charisms and ministries should not give rise, within the ecclesial body, to privileged categories; nor can it serve as a pretext for forms of inequality that find no place in Christ and in the Church”.
He assured that in the Church “there is no promotion, and when the Christian life is conceived as a promotion, that the one who is at the top sends others because he has managed to rise, that is not Christianity. That is pure paganism.”
“Who is most important in the Church: the nun, the baptized, the child, the bishop? We are all the same, we are the same, and when one of the parties thinks they are more important than the others and turns their nose up a little, they are wrong. That is not the vocation of Jesus.”
The vocation that Jesus gives to everyone -but also to those who seem to be in higher places- is service, serving others, and humble oneself. If you meet a person who has a higher vocation in the Church and see him as vain, you will say: ‘Poor thing’; pray for him because he has not understood God’s vocation. God’s vocation is adoration of the Father, love of the community and service. This is being an apostle, this is the testimony of the apostles.