As we can read in the Vatican II decree, Ad Gentes, “The pilgrim Church is missionary by her very nature, since it is from the mission of the Son and the mission of the Holy Spirit that she draws her origin, in accordance with the decree of God the Father.” (AG, 2)

In the Gospel we find the missionary mandate, “From the beginning, the Lord Jesus called those he wanted to join him making twelve of them stay with him and sent them to preach.” (Mk 3:13; cf. Mt 10, 1-42) 

For this reason “The mission of the Church, therefore, is fulfilled by that activity which makes her, obeying the command of Christ and influenced by the grace and love of the Holy Spirit, fully present to all men or nations, in order that, by the example of her life and by her preaching, by the sacraments and other means of grace, she may lead them to the faith, the freedom and the peace of Christ; that thus there may lie open before them a firm and free road to full participation in the mystery of Christ..” (AG, 5)

In Evangelii Gaudium, Pope Francis reminds us of very Vincentian thought: “If the whole Church takes up this missionary impulse, she has to go forth to everyone without exception. But to whom should she go first? When we read the Gospel we find a clear indication: not so much our friends and wealthy neighbors, but above all the poor and the sick, those who are usually despised and overlooked, “those who cannot repay you” (Lk 14:14). There can be no room for doubt or for explanations, which weaken so clear a message. Today and always, “the poor are the privileged recipients of the Gospel”, and the fact that it is freely preached to them is a sign of the kingdom that Jesus came to establish. We have to state, without mincing words, that there is an inseparable bond between our faith and the poor. May we never abandon them.” (EG, 48)

St. Vincent understood this very well.  It was not by chance that he founded the Congregation of the Mission because he knew that “the reason for missionary activity derives from the will of God, who wants all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of truth.  In fact, there is only one God, and only one mediator between God and human persons, Jesus Christ, a man too, who gave himself as ransom for all” (Tm 2: 4-6), and “salvation does not exist in anyone else” (Acts 4:12).

Moreover, from Vincent’s own words emerge the beauty and joy of being missionaries: “to make God known to poor persons; to announce Jesus Christ to them; to tell them that the kingdom of heaven is at hand and that it’s for persons who are poor. Oh, what a great thing that is! But it goes beyond our understanding that we should be called to be associates and sharers in the plans of the Son of God. Quoi\ to become . . . I wouldn’t dare to say it … Be that as it may, it’s such a lofty ministry to evangelize poor persons, which is, par excellence, the work of the Son of God, and we’ve been included in it as instruments by which the Son of God continues to do from heaven what He did on earth. What great reason we have to praise God, my dear confreres, and to thank Him continually for this grace!” (CDC 12, 71-72).

The missionary spirit permeates the Congregation, which has incorporated the need to respond to this call into its Constitutions:

C 16. – Among the apostolic activities of the Congregation missions occupy a high place, both “ad Gentes” missions and popular missions where exist similar conditions for evangelization.

In founding new ecclesial communities, missionaries pay great attention to the “seeds of the Word” contained in the culture and religiosity of the various peoples (cf. EN 53).