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Conclusion
No pastoral plan in and of itself will evangelize and cause people to live
as missionary disciples. A
plan is not an end in itself. It is a means of
nurturing, with the aid of the Holy Spirit, the witness to Christ
in the
world. Faithful witnesses have encountered Christ, been accompanied and
formed by the community
of faith, and have been sent on mission to trans-
form the world through the grace of Christ. Pastoral leaders
cannot do this
task of forming missionary disciples alone. Evangelizing parishes that form
missionary
disciples foster co-responsibility among all the baptized. Pope
Francis reminded pastoral leaders in the United States of this way of being
Church during his apostolic visit in 2015:
One of the great challenges facing the Church in this generation is
to foster in all the
faithful a sense of personal responsibility for the
Church’s mission, and to enable them to
fulfill that responsibility as
missionary disciples, as a leaven of the Gospel in our world. This will
require creativity in adapting to changed situations, carrying forward
the legacy of
the past not primarily by maintaining our structures and
institutions, which have served us well, but above all by being open
to the possibilities which the Spirit opens up to us and
communicat-
ing the joy of the Gospel, daily and in every season of our life.
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May the theological and pastoral resources provided assist your
community of faith in its
journey toward forming missionary disciples and
transforming the world with the love and mercy of
Jesus Christ! Mary, Star
of the New Evangelization, pray for us!