Pope Francis invites us to be an active Church in mission, to face the challenges of humanity and reach fearlessly “the peripheries—the human, cultural, and religious settings still foreign to the Gospel” ( Pope Video, October 2019 ). We must do this with faith and prayer.

Being missionaries in the Church entails being a missionary in the world, because to giving by giving our life in mission, we extend ourselves in service of others. What is my mission? Where is God leading me? These are some of the questions we ask ourselves when we feel the call to Christ’s mission.

We must remember that following Christ does not always lead to taking away everything you enjoy. On the contrary, you can follow Jesus through your dreams. God gives you freedom to choose your path. Therefore, it is important to discern what it is that you want in your life and how God works in it.

In my years of being a missionary I have tried to build dialogues of peace with others, however, where I found the true answer to my mission was in humble prayer. I remember the Pope’s surprising words during the International Meeting of the Pope’s Worldwide Network of Prayer in the Vatican: “The heart of Church’s mission is prayer” (June 29, 2019) .

Prayer makes us innocent and leads us to have a heart of tenderness, which leads us peacefully to the path of the Lord. This is how I discovered my vocation, my mission. I understood the power of prayer, and how prayer is the heart of our life and the mission of the Church.

• Diego Martinez
  (Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network – Guatemala)