By Christine Perrier
Maryknoll Lay Missioner

Discipleship is mission. “Mission” happens when discipleship is faithfully pursued.

These words, first formed three and a half years ago as I was preparing for an overseas mission experience in the South American Andes, began a reflection on my vision of mission. Since then, experiences with the Quechua and Aymara peoples of southern Peru have confirmed my initial intuitions, which still ground and guide me.

The call to “mission” is not reserved for those few who are able to leave their homelands to venture to other countries and proclaim the good news of Jesus. Mission is a right, and indeed a responsibility, of everyone – wherever we find ourselves, for by being baptized into Christ we are clothed with Christ. Our anointing by the Holy Spirit commissions us with the same mission of Jesus:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. (Luke 4:18-19)

Our call to mission is really the journey of discipleship, of continually changing ourselves, individually and communally, into clearer reflections of God’s love for the world. Like Jesus, we are called to live as children of God, as anointed, as Christ-ed people – proclaiming the good news; speaking truth to power; rejecting evil in all its forms; and entering the paschal mystery, trusting that the love of God transforms death into life, injustice into right relationships, abandonment into community and fear into courage.

Crossing boundaries and borders to encounter the other is an element of mission, but it doesn’t necessarily mean leaving one’s country or town. In Peru, as in Latin America, more and more people take seriously their call to mission, to transform a society filled with corruption, racism, poverty and human rights abuses.

During a recent visit to the United States, I realized that boundaries and borders between people are being built with record-breaking speed.

MP3 players attached to our ears prevent us from speaking with one another; the presumption of easy, constant access to the Internet or cell phones excludes the technologically marginalized; and using public means like YouTube to destroy someone’s integrity is increasingly common.

At the same time, we are living with more anxiety, uncertain where our world is going; overwhelmed by the threats and lack of solutions, we turn inward.

These factors make our mission-discipleship more urgent than ever, and somewhat more challenging. It entails – as mission always has – a crossing over, a surrender of ourselves and of our lifestyles, a movement to the margins in our families, communities, countries and world.

Mission-at-the-margins, as Anthony Gittins terms it, is the willingness to be vulnerable, to be challenged, to be transformed, by stepping outside a preoccupation with the self or one’s own limited concerns, and entering into difficult realities mediating greater mysteries. Mission happens whenever and wherever people are willing to be present in the places of pain or woundedness; to enter the struggles against injustice, oppression or violence; to encounter the excluded, isolated or vulnerable; and allow ourselves to be transformed by the grace that is present.

The guiding force for mission needs to be a commitment to discipleship, to following Christ, to living resurrection and proclaiming a God of Life for all people in all situations, as mission can easily be manipulated by individual agendas or motivations, even within ecclesial institutions.

My mission experiences in Peru have been wonderful, difficult and profound, for which I am deeply grateful. My encounters have also allowed me to recognize the interconnectedness of our global family.

The complexities of the immigration issue in the U.S. cannot be separated from the free trade agreements and economies that create and maintain situations of high unemployment and poverty, forcing scores of desperate people to seek opportunities far from their families.

Subsidies given to huge farming corporations flood agricultural markets in other countries with low-priced produce, which undermines local production of the same crops. Domestic issues have international impacts, and foreign policies, attitudes and actions have domestic impacts. For this and other reasons, voting with an integral global-local consciousness is imperative. (One resource for helping voters educate themselves on candidates’ platforms is the Maryknoll Office of Global Concerns, www.maryknollogc.org.)

There is an urgent need for a lived commitment to global solidarity, an awareness of how our lifestyles and the policies of governments and other institutions create and sustain systems of injustice and violence in the world. There is an urgency to be with millions of people nailed to human-made crosses, and imitating Jesus, to be the liberating, forgiving, healing presence of our God of Life. The current world crises are Christian crises, and the discipleship of baptism calls everyone to mission – to cross all sorts of boundaries and borders, comforts and conveniences in order to be a presence of resurrection amid the crosses of our time; and, wherever possible, to dismantle the injustices that exist, furthering the experience of the fullness of the reign of God among us.


Christine Perrier is from Conrad, Mont. She is about to begin her second 3-year contract in overseas mission in Puno, Peru.

Maryknoll Lay Missioners is a Catholic organization that works with poor communities in Africa, Asia, Latin America and North America, making improvements in civil and human rights, and educational, economic, environmental and healthcare development. To learn more about Maryknoll Lay Missioners, call 1.800.867.2980, or visit www. MKLM. org.

Justice Voices articles are coordinated by the Catholic Campaign for Human Development committee of the Diocese of Helena.


Published in The Montana Catholic, Vol. 24, No. 5, May 16, 2008.