October: The Holy Father's missionary prayer intention for October “That World Mission Sunday may be an opportunity to deepen the missionary awareness of all the baptised ”. Comment by Fr. Vito Del Prete, PIME, Secretary general Pontifical Missionary Union

Monday, 1 October 2007

Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - "All the Churches for all the World ”, the theme of World Mission Sunday 2007, is the slogan with which Pope Benedict XVI “calls local Churches in every continent to consciously increase awareness of the urgent necessity to re-launch missionary activity in the face of the many and grave challenges of our day” (Benedict XVI, Message for World Mission Sunday 2007). He intends at the same time to re-launch and give new identity to Fidei Donum priests and lay missionaries, the new missionary agent, the most comprehensible, immediate and effective expression of the ad gentes missionary responsibility which touches every local Church. What makes this message especially effective and comprehensible is the now acquired awareness that the Church is missionary by nature.
The Church exists for humanity. As a Community gathered by the Trinity she is sign and sacrament of humanity redeemed (God's holy people, a people of priests) called to bear witness to and to proclaim the salvation worked by God (a people of priests).
The entire holy Church is consecrated to Jesus' mission. She is a Church which prays, a Church which proclaims, a Church which interprets in the light of her Lord, and inserts herself into the course of history. All the local Churches are for the evangelisation of the whole world. The Church, every local Church and every member of the Church, is entrusted with the task to evangelise all Peoples to the ends of the earth.
All the Churches - All the World: this is the universality of the mission entrusted by Christ to the community of his disciples: universality of mission agents and universality of the receivers of evangelisation. In brief, the Pope's message underlines the fact that the first and foremost task of the whole Church, of every individual local Church, a task which justifies their existence and activity, is simply this: to go out to proclaim the Kingdom of God, which has come in Christ, the Saviour of the World, by means of missionary communion among the local Churches spread among the peoples of the planet. The whole Church, in her many cultural and historical forms of presence, must make her home among all peoples.
This mission has as its model, method and path, communion among the local Churches in the unity of Christ's mystical Body. Mission is the business of all local Churches which like communicating vessels share personnel and resources for the one and the same universal mission. All the local Churches on mission together.
Pius XII, with the encyclical Fidei Donum, of which this year we celebrate the 50th anniversary of its publication, created a new missionary agent, opening in this was a new stage in missionary history. Theoretically and practically he posed signs and intuitions for a new ecclesiological vision. He stated clearly that the whole Church and all the local Churches are called to take part in the universal mission and that therefore it is their duty to send members to other Churches for the evangelising mission. In these 50 years all local Churches, of ancient and recent foundation, have continued to send their own diocesan priests and lay persons first to the sister Churches in Africa, then to those in Latin America and Asia for mission ad gentes, for new evangelisation, or simply to help meet the needs of poorer Churches.
We must recognise that Churches of ancient foundation suffer from an acute shortage of priestly and religious missionary vocations as well as a shortage of fidei donum personnel. This is a challenge which we must take up, Pope Benedict XVI told participants at an International Meeting for Fidei Donum Missionaries, organised by the Pontifical Missionary Union and held in Sacrofano (Rome) in May 2007.
Dioceses, especially older ones, feel like besieged fortresses, they tighten their ranks, count their numbers, re-organise themselves better in order to stop the draining of their communities. “They are in danger of closing themselves, of looking at the future will less hope and lessening their missionary efforts. But -Benedict XVI continues - precisely this is the time to trust in the providence of God, who never abandons his people and through the power of the Holy Spirit, continues to guide it towards the accomplishment of His eternal plan for salvation” (Message for World Mission Sunday 2007).
Ecclesial experience shows that the only way to revitalise Christian communities is Missio ad Gentes. Faith is strengthened when it is shared with others. A diocese or a Christian community which does not follow the path of evangelisation is and will always be in a crisis of faith. On this 50th anniversary of the Fidei Donum encyclical and given the urgency of evangelisation let us pray that all the local Churches will endorse what was said in Puebla in 1979 at the end of the 3rd General Conference of the Council of Bishops' Conferences of Latin America: “Of course we too need missionaries, but we must give of our poverty”. (Fr. Vito Del Prete, PIME) (Agenzia Fides 1/10/2007, righe 54, parole 787)


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