22/05/2026
A Pastoral Letter on Missionary Virtues
A Way of Life for Joyful Missionary Disciples
Dear Friends,
In this time of renewal in the life of the Church, I write to invite you to reflect more deeply on our shared calling to be joyful missionary disciples. This calling is not an optional dimension of our Christian lives but flows from the very grace of Baptism when we are joined with Christ and sent into the world. When we embrace this invitation, it guides the way we live our lives through the virtues we strive to express daily.
Pope Francis explained in Evangelii Gaudium that “the joy of the Gospel fills the hearts and lives of all who encounter Jesus” (EG 1). Indeed, through our Baptism, we are all missionary disciples (EG 120). Mission is not simply an activity of the Church; it belongs to her very nature.
In our own Diocese of Bunbury, we recognise both its challenges and its grace. Across our towns, our rural communities, and our coastal parishes many feel distant from the Church while others are searching quietly for meaning, for belonging and for hope. The Lord is calling us to renew our hearts with his joyful gift and the opportunity to share his Good News.
This missionary invitation flows from the very life of the Trinity. The Father sends the Son “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life” (John 3:16), the Son gathers and forms disciples, and the Holy Spirit sends those disciples – the Church - into the world. This is the missio Dei – it is the mission of God in which we are invited to participate. Through Baptism, each of us share in Christ’s priestly, prophetic and kingly mission (Lumen Gentium, no 31). Mission is not an activity for a few, but the vocation of all.
In a diocese like ours, where distances can be vast and communities diverse, the simple and faithful practice of joyfully embracing the Lord’s invitation to share his Good News becomes all the more important. This enables our parishes to become places of real encounter, where faith is lived, is shared, and is handed on through our relationships with one another and with our communities.
In taking up the Lord’s invitation, we enable our Church in Bunbury to be more fully what she is called to be: a community of joyful missionary disciples, close to the people, attentive to their lives, and open to the movement of the Holy Spirit.
My friends, when we take up the Lord’s invitation, our lives reflect the very pattern of sharing the Good News that he taught us by his life! We express the virtues that demonstrate we have accepted our place as missionary disciples!
The Gospel reveals a consistent pattern in the life and the ministry of Jesus: He welcomes, He offers hospitality, He encounters persons deeply, He stands in solidarity with the oppressed, He teaches and he forms, He gathers at table and He sends forth. These same actions can be recognised as evidence that we have embraced his invitation to be joyful missionary disciples in the life of the Church today.
We Welcome
The first virtue of mission is attentiveness to the other. To commit to welcome is to recognise the dignity of each person created in the image of God. In a culture often marked by anonymity and isolation, the simple act of recognition and response to another becomes a profound expression of the Gospel (cf. Matthew 25:35).
We Offer Hospitality
Christian hospitality is imbedded in the love of Christ, which becomes concrete in acts of charity. As Pope Benedict taught us in his encyclical Deus Caritas Est, love is not an abstract ideal but a lived reality. To exemplify the virtue of hospitality is to create space within our communities and within our lives where others can also experience belonging and care.
We Encounter
From hospitality arises encounter. The Christian faith is born from an encounter with the person of Jesus Christ (cf. Deus Caritas Est, no. 1). The Church is therefore called to foster a true “culture of encounter,” where we consistently meet others with respect, with patience, with compassion, and where Christ becomes present in human relationships.
We are in Solidarity with the Oppressed
Those who are poor or in any way oppressed have a special place in the heart of Jesus and have a special place in His Church. In the rich social teaching of the Church, solidarity is not “a feeling of vague compassion or shallow distress at the misfortunes of so many people, both near and far”, as St John Paul II said (Sollicitudo rei socialis, no. 38). Instead, it is a concrete commitment to stand with those who are suffering and do whatever we can to ensure their dignity is protected.
We Learn
Discipleship entails ongoing formation. The Church is a community of those who listen—listen to the Word of God and listen to one another. As Pope Francis reminds us in Christus Vivit, the Church must be a place of accompaniment, where each person is heard and guided (no. 291). In this way, faith can mature through shared reflection and discernment.
We Share at the Table
The table occupies a central place in the life of Christ and His Church. In the Eucharist, the Lord gives Himself to us and forms us into one Body. From this sacramental communion flows a deeper communion of life, expressed also in the sharing of daily meals and fellowship. The breaking of bread becomes the place of recognition of the Risen Lord, as the disciples on their way to Emmaus discovered (cf. Luke 24:30–31). The joyful missionary disciple is committed to gathering together with others, in worship and in life.
We Are Sent
Every encounter with Christ leads to mission. At the conclusion of the Eucharist, the faithful are sent forth to live what they have received. As the Lord declares, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you” (John 20:21). This sending belongs to all baptised (Lumen Gentium, no 31), who are called to witness in their families, in their workplaces and in their communities. A missionary disciple takes up the journey in earnest.
These virtues are not isolated actions but form a coherent way of life. They correspond to the call of the Church, expressed also in the Aparecida Document, to move from maintenance to mission, from preservation to evangelisation.
A parish shaped in this way becomes a place where persons are known and valued, newcomers are welcomed with sincerity, faith is shared naturally and the joy of the Gospel is evident in daily life.
Dear brothers and sisters, the Lord’s compelling invitation to us – to be joyful missionary disciples – asks us to begin not with grand gestures, but with faithful and intentional steps. Each of us is invited to:
• grow in attentiveness to others;
• practice genuine hospitality;
• enter into deeper encounters;
• stand in solidarity with those who are oppressed or suffering;
• remain open to learning and formation;
• cultivate communion around the table;
• and embrace our mission with courage and trust.
In this way, missionary discipleship becomes a central reflection of who we are.
We entrust this journey to the Blessed Virgin Mary, who welcomed the Word of God in faith and carried Him to others in love. In her visitation to Elizabeth, we see the first missionary movement of the Church: a heart that receives Christ and goes forth in joy (Luke 1:38-45).
May she accompany us as we seek to live these missionary virtues with fidelity and hope.
With every blessing
Most Rev George Kolodziej SDS
Bishop of Bunbury
