By Her Excellency, Mary McAleese, President of the Republic Ireland

Mary McAleese is the president of Ireland. As a girl she helped to promote the Columban mission magazine, The Far East. Recently she was asked to address missionaries and here is an extract from her address.

Through the years I have come to know and hugely to admire the tremendous work done by missionaries in all parts of the world – the extraordinary heroism they have demonstrated in bringing and, more importantly, living the Gospel in so many different places. More than anyone, they have great insight, distilled from their experience, that what the world need s most of all is the loving touch of God, not empty recitations from some rule book. More than anyone, they’re well-placed to bring this message to a world still locked in conflict and prejudice.

A Shared Ethnic

Even the most unyielding problems can be resolved on the foundations of a common value system, built by men and women of good faith coming together with a common mission as equals and with a commitment to turn away from a conflict driven world view to a consensus driven one.

If such a value system is to have real effect across the world, it must be genuinely global. It must be transcend charges of ethnocentricity, in order to be accepted in the slums of South America and the villages of Africa. Given the diversity of cultures, values and social structures that exist across the world, it may seem that the challenge of formulating such a set of guidelines for human behavior that can be accepted universally is either impossible or would require an imposed homogenization.

In fact, neither is the case. The building blocks for such a common ethnic already exist within the religions of the world. Within our diversity, there is a common essence among all the great religions. An essence which has at its heart of Golden Rule that “we must treat others as we would wish them to treat us.” That basic premise, which is so familiar and yet so astonishing in its simplicity and power, is capable of being the source of a truly global ethic. There are few places on earth where these religions have not profoundly influenced – and continue to influence – the development of local value systems, local cultures. By coming together, they could play an invaluable role in promoting acceptance of this universal ethic within every culture and creed.

It sounds so simple. We may ask, then, why it has not already succeeded in changing the world. Perhaps, as G.K. Chesterton said of Christianity, “It is not that it has been tried and found wanting, it has been found difficult and left untried.

The God Difference

This is not a call of uniformity or religion, for attempting to deny or eradicate the kaleidoscope of differences in doctrine and form, practice and prayer that. God is, after all, the source of all diversity, the creator of e ach person as a unique human being. Those very differences between people. Between religions, provide us with the most profound evidence of the scale of God’s embrace of diversity. But it is nevertheless a call to action, to build bridges of trust between the different religions, particularly between the different Christians Churches, that can provide cause ways of trust to tier faiths. It is an invitation to listen and learn from each other, to identify the core values and objective that unite us, and to call to teach the next generation respect, real respect for difference take from them and to bury the old batons of contempt.

It is often those at the margins, who are most willing to take the necessary risks. They have risk to lose form upturning the comfort of established relations, the polite but empty exchanges that that have so often marked inter-faith dialogue in the past. They are closest to those in greatest need of our help – those whose lives are torn apart by conflict, poverty, injustice and despair, those whom we label as the marginalized, the socially excluded. Their insight and wisdom are needed in the world. Their giftedness is needed.

Known and Loved

You cannot divide love. Its nature is to multiply, to embrace openly and widely, to draw in, not to exclude, to make each feel part of the groups, to make ach feel completely at home, to reconcile. Exclusively is not in the nature of God. He made each one of us, called us by our name, knew us before we were born, has the very hairs on each head counted. God has no favorites. Captor and captive are his cherished children. Calvary is his gift to all. The Resurrection is his promise. The Second Coming is his invitation. It is an invitation to experience is loving presence, to share it and to bring the world out of chaos into reconciliation with Him.

That is the task – the missionary task for the third millennium – simple and only elusive if we let it be.

“More than anyone, missionaries have great insight, distilled from their experience, that what the world needs most of all is the loving touch of God...”

Salamat sa World Mission