Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Drobeta Turnu Severin (Agenzia Fides) - Every time a Christian community goes beyond the door of its church to bear witness in word and deed to the love of God, it is on mission. This activity in keeping with the very nature of the Church will be more visible at Drobeta Turnu Severn from 14 to 21 October. During Sunday Mass on 14 October, as Bishop Cornel Damian, auxiliary bishop of Bucharest, handed out mission crosses and entrusted to families the lamps of Centres for Listening to God's Word, he opened the popular mission in the Roman Catholic parish of the Immaculate Conception in Drobeta Turnu Severin.
What is new in the programme is that the mission will entail direct involvement of families in morning prayers at home. Each family will choose a time to pray together before going out for the daily activities. A mission team of 4 Oblate Missionaries of Mary Immaculate and Sr. Cristina, a member of the Sisters of Charity and St. Giovanna Antida, from Monday 15 to Thursday 18 October will visit every family in the parish and hold gatherings at Centres for Listening to God's Word. These evening meetings will by hosted by 8 families who will open their homes to those in the area who wish to listen to the Word of God and share an experience of faith.
On Friday 19 October at 7pm the parish community will make “Way of Love” leading to reconciliation with God through the sacrament of reconciliation. On Saturday the local young Catholics will meet to concretise the week's experience in creative workshops and at 8pm there will be a mission prayer vigil with the whole parish in communion with all the Churches involved in announcing the Gospel.
The programme for this week of mission is part of a 2 year programme which began on 25 March when the parish priest Rev. Claudio Cojan and Fr. Angelo Daddio OMI, prayed together to discern how to respond to the community's spiritual needs. The parish has 235 families and a total 691 people who represent 0.6% of the 109,450 people in Drobeta Turnu Severin. This year the parish church will celebrate the 120th anniversary of its consecration by Archbishop Paul I. Palma, Archbishop of Bucharest. The first Roman Catholic parishioners of Drobeta Turnu Severin who started a stable community came here in about 1830, in December 1887 the church was consecrated and in 1897 there was the first mission. In view of these historic events a week of mission, part of a middle-long term project, is in the contest of the on-going mandate to evangelise received by “all the Churches for all the world”. (S.L.) (Agenzia Fides 15/10/2007 - Righe 32, parole 467)
