Out of love God created man and the whole world to serve him. Out of love he placed him in heaven and had constant communication with him. Out of love He created him in His own image and likeness, that is, in His own image and likeness, that is, modeled on Himself and able to be like Him, so that man could also become God. This image, however, consisted of two characteristics: first, immortality and second, freedom. For this reason there was in heaven a “little loophole” which made man free to choose life close to God or to reject it by eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. There are many who claim that God wronged man by removing him from heaven! Yet they are wrong! Man, by making use of the freedom God gave him, has wronged himself and his descendants. But Christ, as a loving father, moved by an exceeding love for His children, became man in order to save us, to restore His relationship with us, to restore to us the possibility – always in freedom – of becoming inhabitants of the lost paradise. “He who wills to give grace, of ancient dues, the debtor of all men, He has redeemed through Himself, to those who are the offspring of His grace. And he that cleaveth the palisade heareth all things thus. Hallelujah.” Out of love he lived among us as a perfect man and at the same time as a perfect God. He worked miracles and healed every aching person in His path, He preached and as a result of His teaching, the restructuring of the principles of the world, the abolition of gender inequality, slavery and ethno-racialism. Out of love for man, the “Son of Man” and also the Son of God continued the redemptive project of the Divine Economy. He was challenged, betrayed, denied, tortured, carried His cross and crucified. Out of sacrificial love He endured the ingratitude of men toward all His benefits – culminating in vinegar in His last request instead of water – and of course death. However, His insurmountable and inexhaustible love did not end in sacrifice, but as true God He rose again, conquered death and abolished its power over us, opening the doors of heaven to us again. Finally, just before ascending again into heaven, – out of love for all generations of the world to the ends of the earth and forever and ever – He urged the apostles and those who would follow their example to go to all the nations of the earth preaching, baptizing, giving away truth and salvation. The apostle Paul exhorts us: “Become imitators of me, as I am of Christ”. By modeling ourselves on the Great Missionary, our Lord Jesus Christ, we can learn great missionary lessons. The missionary is filled with selfless love. He does not go to the nations and peoples with the purpose of changing their customs and traditions, but on the contrary, he becomes one with them, he becomes one of them with the sole aim of making them acquainted with Christ and the truth of the Gospel.
After all, this is what Christ and His imitator Paul did when he confessed that “I have forgiven all thingsto all men, but I will savesome”. The life of the missionary is a model of a Christian, a true imitation of Christ, a life sacrificed to His work to the point of death, and even death on the cross, knowing of course that after the sacrifice of his labours, his sweat, his tears and even his life, the resurrection of the people and peoples he interrupted follows… Christ is risen, brothers!
