Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Madrid (Agenzia Fides) - “Getting to Work” is the theme of Missionary Childhood Day in Spain on Sunday 27 January. The purpose is to encourage children to collaborate in missionary work directly, “working to build missionary activity ”.
In a Message for the occasion National Director of the Pontifical Mission Societies in Spain, Archbishop Francisco Pérez of the diocese of Pamplona-Tudela, says “we cannot stop. We must work with children for children without fear and with confidence”. The Archbishop stressed the need to tell children “with realism, all they will have to learn to become men and women of the future”, unmask, unhesitatingly the “confusion which reigns today in society and which grows as time passes”.
Archbishop Perez said “relativism is the deep lying cause of this confusion which is doing a great deal of harm to our young people who in a few years time will have the future of society on their shoulders”. It is necessary to take action especially in childhood which “like a sponge, absorbs everything which is put in front of it and which marks it for life. Good things and bad things”. Children must be taught that “not everything is suitable”, “not everything is good” and “freedom is not 'doing as we please; freedom is something sacred which helps the person grow with an authentic style of life and whose rule is to do good and seek things which are good”.
The PMS National Director appealed to the media to teach people “to live and orient life on the path of truth”. He urges parishes and schools and families to use the abundant catechetical material prepared by PMS to help the formation of children. “Let us make this Missionary Childhood Day an opportunity to form our children ”, Archbishop Pérez concluded.
Among the goals of the Day: “lead children to missionary activity which stems from their condition as baptised Christians; make the Pontifical Missionary Childhood Society better known and involve more children in its activities; promote in families, schools and parishes activities which help children to “get to work” in spiritual and material cooperation to help children in need; increase among the faithful a desire to provide economic support for missionaries working with disadvantaged children.
The abundant material prepared for the Day includes a Missionary Passport to be distributed to child members of mission groups. The 'Passport' contains the different laps the child must travel to reach the goal. It is personal and must be filled in each time a lap is passed. Those who arrive first receive a prize. The initiative aims to stimulate Missionary Childhood leaders to intensify missionary animation among children offering them a means of helping other less fortunate children. (RG) (Agenzia Fides 25/1/2008; righe 39, parole 515)
