"To other towns I must go to announce the Good News of the reign of God, because that is why I was sent." These words of Jesus from Luke's Gospel give us an insight into the self-understanding of Jesus. Jesus did not merely come into this world: He was sent, so that His life on earth was a mission. Because He came on a mission as the Saviour of all humanity, He could not, as it were, settle down in one place to create a community around Himself. There was in His heart and spirit always the call of the "other towns". It is true, of course, that Jesus did not go beyond the borders of Israel. That, however is a sign of His human reality rather than any indication of a restriction of His message or His saving grace. What Jesus was not able to accomplish in His historical reality has now been accomplished in His mystical body the Church: the mission to the "other towns" has been a marked characteristic of the Church, so that our self-understanding is summed up, among other ways, by the notion of pilgrim Church.