“Witnessing to the Light: From Everywhere for Everyone” from a Social Communication Perspective

“Witnessing to the Light: From Everywhere for Everyone” from a Social Communication Perspective
SVD Mission in Contexts: Creative Responses in a Wounded World
Tim Norton, SVD

When using the term “Witnessing to the Light,” we understand that this Light is Christ in the world. Witnessing to the Light or endeavoring to communicate Christ’s presence in our world is the work of every baptized Christian and involves all our efforts whether they are individual or collective, verbal or non-verbal, active or passive.

Our task is to help make present the Kingdom or Reign of God that Jesus came to preach. We live in the tension between the Kingdom’s present manifestation and its future finalization. We experience the blessing and challenges of God’s presence with us in the here and now as we wait in hope for the fullness of the Kingdom that will come at the end of time.

This is well exemplified by Jesus’ parable of the mustard seed, the smallest of seeds, that grows over time into a tree, the largest of trees, which provides abundant space for the birds of air to roost and nest.[1] We think of the small signs of God that herald a future full of life’s blessings.

The importance of the Kingdom of God was helpfully highlighted by Pope Paul VI during Vatican II:

Christ first of all proclaims a kingdom, the Kingdom of God; and this is so important that, by comparison, everything else becomes ‘the rest,” which is ‘given in addition.’ Only the Kingdom, therefore, is absolute, and it makes everything else relative.”[2]

The clarity of this statement leads us to a more critical reflection of our missionary endeavors in the world. As Christian people on mission, we work hard to build up ecclesial and social ministries that serve all, especially the poor, the “little ones” referred to by Jesus.[3] But the original focus of our witness can easily change over time if we are not intentionally faithful to evangelical imperatives. In areas of parish life, education, health care, and social services, we can legitimately ask ourselves if we are witnessing to the Kingdom of God or protecting the reputation of an institution? Are we witnessing to the Light or spending most of our time with people who gift us with the good things of life? Are we witnessing to the Kingdom by promoting mission or are we getting lost in the minutiae of administration? Are we witnessing to the Light or spending time attaining educational qualifications that are little used for the good of God’s people in the world?

Believing in, talking about, and living in ways that we believe help bring about the Kingdom of God are lifelong activities for Christians wishing to deepen their faith. In fact, the whole church has been tasked by Jesus to preach the gospel. So, we need to seek means of communication that not only announce the good news of salvation but do so in ways that people might relate to in their own cultural milieu.[4]

This can be done in a variety of ways that must always take into account the context in which we find ourselves. Communication in the Catholic tradition is not just a transmission of information but is also about the building of relationships that are based on solidarity, truth, and love.[5]

Antonio Pernia talks about reimagining mission in the light of it being not our mission but missio Dei, God’s mission. He writes of four required and fundamental shifts in our way of doing mission today so that we can truly reference missio Dei with integrity. The four conversions are:

(1) from activism to contemplation;

(2) from individualism to collaboration;

(3) from superiority to humility; and

(4) from only evangelizing to also being evangelized.[6]

[1] Gospel of Matthew, 13:31 – 32 (NRSV).

[2] Paul VI, Evangelii Nuntiandi, Evangelization in the Modern World, 1975, https://www.vatican.va/content/paul-vi/en/apost_exhortations/documents/hf_p-vi_exh_19751208_evangelii-nuntiandi.html, no. 8.

[3] Gospel of Matthew 18:10, 12, 16 (NRSV).

[4] Paul VI, Inter Mirifica, Decree on The Media Of Social Communications, Dec 4 1964, Retrieved June 23 2025 from (https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/docu-ments/vat-ii_decree_19631204_inter-mirifica_en.html, Chap 1, no. 4.

[5] Jürgen Ommerborn, SVD, “The Role of Communication in the Evangelizing Mission,” Arnold Janssen Secretariat 2020, https://vivatdeus.org/library/art040/ (accessed June 26, 2025).

[6] Antonio M. Pernia, “The State of Mission Today,” Verbum SVD 55, no. 1 (2014): 9-25.