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According to Vatican II and post- Vatican II documents a missionary is defined as one who is called and sent with the intention of naniing Jesus where he has not been named, preaching the Gospel and the kingdom where they have not been preached and gathering the community of the Church where this has not been done. The missionary is sent not to a place so much as to a people.T'his makes a missionary a frontier person who has a definite intention of speaking of Jesus Christ and the kingdom among peoples who do not know him. Missionary work, according to these sources, therefore, is not pastoral work among believers.

The hope of sharing Christ explicitly with those who do not know him is especially important for missionary spirituality. Missionary spirituality is the lifestyle of those called and sent on mission to share Christ with others who do not believe or fully accept him; and it is the theory and inspiration which informs this calling and lifestyle. In essence, therefore, missionary spirituality has its own particular charisma and orientation.

On two occasions in Pope John Paul II's encyclical Redemptoris Missio, missionaries are invited to "always meditate on the response demanded by the gift they have received", the charism of their missionary vocation. It is only by going back to that original moment in our lives, an struggling to break it open in an ever-fresh way that we can rediscover the richness of the spirituality which is our heritage as recipients of the missionary call.

The "original moment' for each of us will obviously have a very unique and individual context. But because we are sharers of the one missionary charisma there are a number of deeply rich and varied sources which help to give flesh and blood, as it were, to the understanding and articulation of the gift we have each received - and, at the same time, we learn something of the constant elements that must be present in any authentic missionary call. Among these sources are of course theology and history - especially the serious study of the lives of individual missionaries. But the richest, and most fruitful resource, will always be found in the scriptures.

Themes and texts from the old and new testaments have the deepest relevance for the understanding and appreciation of our own 'original moment". The texts of Isaiah's and Jeremiah's call, help to give body to Jesus' call to the Apostles in the synoptics and John. I read somewhere that Paul's second letter to the Corinthians can be regarded as 'the best case study in Missionary Spirituality that has ever been published".The Gospel of John contains the theme of Mission as its primary and organising principle. And there are many more parts of scripture which offer fertile ground for reflection aimed at a concrete missionary spirituality, and each of us, no doubt, will have our own favourite texts. St. Patrick bears continuing testimony to the fact that mission is based, not on human abilities, but on the power of the Risen Lord. The Spirit of Christ used the material of this timid, introverted, shy and deeply wounded man, and transformed him into a strong and courageous witness to Christ.The same Spirit impelled him along the new and difficult path of mission to a people who did not know Christ. A profound awareness of being chosen by God was one of Patrick's deepest convictions, and his whole subsequent missionary life was lived out of the life-giving and life-receiving consciousness of that 'original moment'.

This consciousness originated within the context of a life centered on deep intimacy with God through the practice of personal prayer. By sustained commitment to that practice, Patrick became a 'contemplative in action" who found guid- ance for pastoral difficulties, and nourishment for his own inner life, in a love of God which was solidly founded on the word of Scripture. He did not allow hiniself, therefore, to be deflected by doubts, misunderstaiiding, rejection or persecution. He was urged on by a zeal that all people might know themselves, as he knew himself, as part of God's family, redeemed in Christ. John Macquarrie speaks Of Our Celtic forebears as 'God-intoxicated people". St. Patrick was certainly a 'God-intoxicated' man, a God who captivated and moved him to "leave your country, your family, and Your Father's house, for the land that I will show you"(Gen.12:1). The same God continues to captivate, and for the same purpose.

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