Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Buenos Aires (Agenzia Fides) - "Helping the Missions, Love in Action" is the theme of Mission Sunday this year, which Catholics in Argentina celebrate on Sunday 14 October, Fr. Jairo Calderón Benavidez national director of the Pontifical Mission Societies in that country told Fides. The theme was chosen in harmony with the experience of the Third National Mission Congress held 18 - 20 August and to encourage Congress participants to take an active part in animation of Mission Sunday.
Fr. Jairo said the Congress was “an experience of a living Church moved by the Spirit of Pentecost, anxious to renew itself as it continues on its pilgrimage.... we realised that this is the hour of mission. The Lord won us for mission, he called us to make us 'be' missionaries and 'act' as missionaries”. This year's slogan is a call to put words into action, "to live mission in a spirit of brotherhood and solidarity, in the joy of knowing we are all children of God, and with a universal outreach to all humanity, and commitment to help the needy in mission lands with spiritual and material aid".
The National Director said that Mission Sunday material prepared by the local Pontifical Mission Societies offices aims to help the faithful are not just collaborators, they must be main players and shoulder responsibility for the Church's missionary activity. Material distributed to parishes, mission centres and schools throughout the country includes: a handbook for study and reflection in the four weeks of the missionary month of October; suggestions for the celebration of Mission Sunday masses and homilies; posters; holy pictures with the prayer of the missionary Church; a special issue of The Missionary Church Today magazine with articles on the lights and shadows of mission work all over the world and the activity of Argentinean missionaries; a minute long Mission Sunday video for television channels and a Mission Sunday audio recording for radio stations. The National PMS office is preparing programmes of mission testimony for transmission by Buenos Aires archdiocesan Catholic TV channel. National television will broadcast a Mission Sunday mass presided by a missionary priest. Programmes to increase mission awareness and participation are underway in dioceses across the country. (RG) (Agenzia Fides 9/10/2007; righe 27, parole 385)
