St Paul was a travelling missionary. He went from town to town preaching the Good News. His journeys were not easy. He entertained a conviction that God was summoning him to cover many areas and so extend the reach of the Good News of God's love.

Today, we enjoy the fruit of this conviction of St Paul and of the other early disciples of Jesus as well as the many missionaries like him. Since Vatican Council II the Church celebrates the conviction of the early apostles and proclaims that her very nature is missionary.

Pope John Paul II, the great missionary Pope of our time, calls on all Catholics to be bearers of the Good News, that is, to evangelize. Though we may not travel to distant lands nevertheless our role as missionaries demands that we uphold and live our baptismal promises.

As missionaries then, we need to be convinced that there is no need to succumb to the values of "the world" that reduces love to an attitude of consumerism which practises a "throw away" habit or plastic culture. The consumerist world view is that nothing lasts for ever. Everything is temporary. Love was never meant to be that way. Scripture say, "love never ends", (1 Cor. 13:8).

Indeed, we would not be liked by "the world", because we value the permanency of love. But did not Jesus says "If the world hates, know that it has hated Me before it hated you" (Jn. 15:18).