Sometimes it can seem that missionaries are sent out to boost numbers of Catholics, as if the Church is only concerned about having a crowds of Catholics in the world.
While certain individuals may have that motivation, most missionaries are motivated by their own passionate love of Christ and their desire to spread that love to others.
Motivated by the love of Christ
St. Anthony Mary Claret, a 19th-century missionary bishop, wrote about this motivation in a work featured in the Church's Office of Readings:
Driven by the fire of the Holy Spirit, the holy apostles traveled throughout the earth. Inflamed with the same fire, apostolic missionaries have reached, are now reaching, and will continue to reach the ends of the earth, from one pole to the other, in order to proclaim the word of God. They are deservedly able to apply to themselves those words of the apostle Paul: "The love of Christ drives us on."
He further explains how the love of Christ inflames the missionary to share that love with others:
The love of Christ arouses us, urges us to run, and to fly, lifted on the wings of holy zeal. The zealous man desires and achieves all great things and he labors strenuously so that God may always be better known, loved and served in this world and in the life to come, for this holy love is without end.
Furthermore, this love is what helps a missionary stay faithful to his mission whenever he encounters a hardship:
Nothing deters him: he rejoices in poverty; he labors strenuously; he welcomes hardships; he laughs off false accusations; he rejoices in anguish. He thinks only of how he might follow Jesus Christ and imitate him by his prayers, his labors, his sufferings, and by caring always and only for the glory of God and the salvation of souls.
If a missionary were only motivated by increasing numbers, he or she would inevitably give-up, because being a missionary is extremely difficult at times.
The only thing that can really keep a missionary from abandoning his or her post is the love they receive from God.
With God's love, anything is possible.
