Prayer keeps our 'spark of hope' alive, says Pope Francis for 2025 World Mission Day Message

Pope Francis, for his 2025 World Mission Day Message, says “Prayer keeps the 'spark of hope' alive, which can become a ‘great fire’, which enlightens and warms everyone around."   

The message was published by the Holy See Press Office in several languages on Thursday, according to Vatican News. On October 19, the Church will observe the 99th edition of the World Day.  

He adds, that prayer is not only the "primary missionary activity," but also the key to  "keeping alive the spark of hope lit by God within us..."

With “hope” as the core of his message, the Pope chose the motto “Missionaries of Hope Among all Peoples”. This is to remind individual Christians and the entire Church "of the fundamental vocation to be, in the footsteps of Christ, messengers, and builders of hope." He hoped the Day would be a time of grace. 

"May we too feel inspired to set out in the footsteps of the Lord Jesus to become, with Him and in Him, signs and messengers of hope for all, in every place and circumstance that God has granted us to live," the Pope encouraged the faithful.

He added, "Christians are called to hand on the Good News by sharing the concrete life situations of those whom they meet, and thus to be bearers and builders of hope…"

"Following the Lord’s call, you have gone forth to other nations to make known the love of God in Christ… I thank you most heartily! Your lives are a clear response to the command of the risen Christ, who sent His disciples to evangelize all peoples," said the Holy Father.

They are signs of the "universal vocation" of the baptized to become, by the power of the Spirit and daily effort, "missionaries among all peoples and witnesses to the great hope given us by the Lord Jesus," said the Pope.

Christian communities can be "harbingers of a new humanity in a world that, in the most 'developed' areas, shows serious symptoms of human crisis," witnessed through "a widespread sense of bewilderment, loneliness and indifference to the needs of the elderly, and a reluctance to make an effort to assist our neighbors in need," he said.

In the most technologically advanced nations, the Holy Father went on to observe, that “proximity” is disappearing. "We are all interconnected, but not related. Obsession with efficiency and an attachment to material things and ambitions are making us self-centered and incapable of altruism."

The Gospel, experienced in the life of a community, the Holy Father reassured, can restore us to "a whole, healthy, redeemed humanity."  For this reason, the Pope renewed his appeal for all faithful to pay particular attention to the poor, weak, elderly and excluded, and to do so "with God’s 'style' of closeness, compassion and tenderness.

"Christ’s disciples are called first to discover how to become “artisans” of hope and restorers of an often distracted and unhappy humanity, the Pope said of the urgency of the mission.

Missionaries of hope, the Holy Father reiterated, are "men and women of prayer," "for 'the person who hopes is a person who prays.'”

"Let us not forget that prayer is the primary missionary activity and at the same time 'the first strength of hope.” He urged missionaries to "renew the mission of hope, starting from prayer, especially prayer based on the word of God and particularly the Psalms, that great symphony of prayer whose composer is the Holy Spirit."

"By praying we keep alive the spark of hope lit by God within us, so that it can become a great fire, which enlightens and warms everyone around us, also by those concrete actions and gestures that prayer itself inspires," said the Holy Father. 

He said evangelization is always a communitarian process, like Christian hope itself. "That process does not end with the initial preaching of the Gospel and with Baptism, but continues with the building up of Christian communities through the accompaniment of each of the baptized along the path of the Gospel." 

Pope Francis emphasized that missionary work requires praying and acting as a community.

He urged “children, young people, adults and the elderly, to participate actively in the common evangelizing mission of the Church by your witness of life and prayer, by your sacrifices and by your generosity."

The pope concluded by urging all faithful to turn to Mary, Mother of Christ our hope, reminding us to entrust to her this Jubilee, along with all the years yet to come.