The Lorenzo Ruiz Mission Society has been celebrating masses in SM Manila as a pastoral response to provide the Holy Eucharist among the mall shoppers every third and fourth Sunday of the month. It is always the commitment of the Society to bring the Church as well as the Holy Eucharist closer to the people. Malls are the usual places where people go because of the convenience they get when they go shopping, meals, meetings, and other forms of relaxation and unwinding. Bringing the Holy Eucharist to places like the malls is a noble response to a desired pastoral concern. The management of SM Manila has begun the celebration of Masses almost simultaneous with its opening in 2001. The influx of mass goers has been remarkable since the inception of having masses in that mall. Masses of the third and fourth Sunday of the month are taken cared of by the LRMS priests. Mass goers constantly support priestly and religious vocations through prayers, vocation promotion, and financial assistance. Mall masses has also attracted many priestly vocations which makes places like these as fertile grounds for spiritual nourishment, community development, and vocation animation. The SM Manila Mall Masses are under the supervision and pastoral guidance of St. Vincent Parish which is managed by the Congregation on Missions (CM).

CHRISTOLOGICAL MISSIOLOGY

1. Universality- the universality of the Church is dependent on the ecclesial understanding of Christ. The catholicity of the mission is subsequent to the universality of salvation brought about by Christ in the Paschal mystery. John Paul II says that “the Church’s universal mission is born of faith in Jesus Christ, as is stated in our Trinitarian profession of faith: “I believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father.... For us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven: by the power of the Holy Spirit he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary, and was made man.” The redemption event brings salvation to all, “for each one is included in the mystery of the redemption and with each one Christ has united himself forever through this mystery.” (RM 4) When the study of mission does not find its centrality on Christ is a mission that is short-lived and dependent on just times and seasons. The Church’s faith in Christ is crucial for its universality. John Paul II continues to say that: “It is only in faith that the Church's mission can be understood and only in faith that it finds its basis.” (RM 4)

2. Trinitarian- A Christological missiology is Trinitarian in nature because one can never separate a Christological truth from a Trinitarian doctrine. In fact, the Second Vatican Council highlights the nature of the Church’s mission as Christological but always linked to the decree of the Father and the work of the Holy Spirit. It says: “The pilgrim Church is missionary by her very nature, since it is from the mission of the Son and the mission of the Holy Spirit that she draws her origin, in accordance with the decree of God the Father.” (AG 2) This illustrates that the work of Christ is both a task and a fulfillment of the plan of the Father for creation and humanity.

3. Revelation- The mission of Christ is biblical in nature. The theology of mission has to find its apex in the revelation of Christ and the scriptures testify on His behalf. The proclamation of the Word and the promotion of the sacraments all constitute the entire vocation of the Church to preach about Christ who is at the center of divine revelation. The Church has no intention of speaking about only of itself but it has to speak about Christ as the kernel of its mission of proclamation. No one would ever think of speaking about a church without Christ. “Since this mission goes on and in the course of history unfolds the mission of Christ Himself, who was sent to preach the Gospel to the poor, the Church, prompted by the Holy Spirit, must walk in the same path on which Christ walked: a path of poverty and obedience, of service and self - sacrifice to the death, from which death He came forth a victor by His resurrection.” (AG 5)

4. Fullness- The universality of Christ’s mission is dependent on the nature of the fullness of salvation brought about by Christ. This fullness was revealed by Christ Himself: “No one comes to the Father, but by me” (Jn 14:6) The concept of fullness does not only refer to the act of Jesus on the entire Paschal Mystery but it flows immediately from the nature of Christ as God. John Paul II clarifies saying that: “If we go back to the beginnings of the Church, we find a clear affirmation that Christ is the one Savior of all, the only one able to reveal God and lead to God. In reply to the Jewish religious authorities who question the apostles about the healing of the lame man, Peter says: “By the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by him this man is standing before you well.... And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:10, 12). This statement, which was made to the Sanhedrin, has a universal value, since for all people-Jews and Gentiles alike - salvation can only come from Jesus Christ.” (RM 5)

5. Newness- All newness centers of Christ by virtue of being the Word and by being the Risen Christ. Mission is about being new in Christ and St. Paul has written that everything becomes new in Christ: “We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.” (Rom 6:4) Likewise, St. Paul clarifies regarding the fulfillment of Christ’s mission on earth, that through Him all creation is made new. He said: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” (2 Cor 5:17) But fullness is not only revealed by Christ by His very nature as the One sent by the Father but by the eschatological nature of His coming into the world. In the Book of Revelation, Christ is revealed as the “eternal newness” of all things. Christ becomes the image of a new heaven, a new earth, a new covenant, and a new Jerusalem. It reads: “He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” (Rev. 21:5)

6. Commission- Mission emanates from Christ who commissioned His disciples to go to the nations. The source of a missionary command is Christ Himself because He desired that all of humanity has to know the ultimate truth about God. Vatican II speaks: “Missionary activity is closely bound up even with human nature itself and its aspirations. For by manifesting Christ the Church reveals to men the real truth about their condition and their whole calling, since Christ is the source and model of that redeemed humanity, imbued with brotherly love, sincerity and a peaceful spirit, to which they all aspire.” (AG 8) Mission is Christological because of the source of the command the disciples receive as they go to the “nations.” Vatican II continues to say: “Whence the duty that lies on the Church of spreading the faith and the salvation of Christ, not only in virtue of the express command which was inherited from the Apostles by the order of bishops, assisted by the priests, together with the successor of Peter and supreme shepherd of the Church, but also in virtue of that life which flows from Christ into His members; “From Him the whole body, being closely joined and knit together through every joint of the system, according to the functioning in due measure of each single part, derives its increase to the building up of itself in love” (Eph. 4:16). The mission of the Church, therefore, is fulfilled by that activity which makes her, obeying the command of Christ and influenced by the grace and love of the Holy Spirit, fully present to all men or nations, in order that, by the example of her life and by her preaching, by the sacraments and other means of grace, she may lead them to the faith, the freedom and the peace of Christ; that thus there may lie open before them a firm and free road to full participation in the mystery of Christ.” (AG 5)

7. Salvation- Mission is Christological because humanity is redeemed in the Paschal Mystery of Christ. The Acts of the Apostles says: “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12) Christ offers salvation to those who develop their faith in Him for “those who believe in Him may not perish.” John Paul II further explains: “Faith demands a free adherence on the part of man, but at the same time faith must also be offered to him, because the “multitudes have the right to know the riches of the mystery of Christ-riches in which we believe that the whole of humanity can find, in unsuspected fullness, everything that it is gropingly searching for concerning God, man and his destiny, life and death, and truth.... This is why the Church keeps her missionary spirit alive, and even wishes to intensify it in the moment of history in which we are living.” (RM 8).