Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Guatemala City (Fides Service) – “We cannot be silent about what we have seen and heard” is the title of the CAM2 Message to the People of God dated 29 November 2003. Under five sub headings the Message speaks of the spirit of joy and hope which pervaded the Congress: “overcoming frontiers and barriers of languages and culture we have been mutually enriched through sharing of experience and commitment in the urgent task to proclaim the Gospel as faithful witnesses of Jesus Christ”.
Paragraph 2 focuses on the characteristics of Mission in Central America: “littleness poverty and martyrdom”, which also marked preparations for CAM 2. “The experience lived in the faith as a small flock gave us new and profound understanding of the parable of the mustard seed”... “Our peoples are poor in material goods but they possess the immense riches of the faith. We can say therefore that they are rich because the absence of faith is the greatest poverty”... “During these days the numerous martyrs of these lands were present in our thoughts”.
“The call to Mission is a call to holiness” is the heading of Paragraph 3 which says that prayer with the native peoples of Guatemala helped the Congress participants to contemplate “God in creation and in his plan for Redemption, to entrust to him pain and suffering and to keep alive hope when the horizon appears completely dark to discover his providential presence in simple things and actions, to thank him for his Father’s maternal tenderness expressed in many ways.”
Paragraph 4 speaks of the mission commitment of the Church in America: “We must share the most beautiful gift received on the day of our baptism: the gift of faith”. Many brothers and sisters left South America facing great risks in search of a better life, many went to North America with their deep faith in Jesus Christ and their love for the Church: “We can consider them missionaries sent by God because with their testimony they remind people living in abundance of the authentic values of the Gospel”.
The Message ends with a call “not to be silent about what we have seen and heard”: children who are the missionary springtime of the Church cannot be silent; young people who have discovered in Christ a friend for whom it is worth committing their whole life cannot be silent; Christians called by virtue of baptism and confirmation to give missionary witness of the faith cannot be silent; so too neither can religious, priests and bishops can be silent. “We cannot be silent when we know that half of the world’s Catholics live their faith in America. This is why we announce with joy that as a fruit of CAM 2 Central America will have its own Centre of Formation and Animation of Mission Ad Gentes ”.
(SL) (Fides Service1/12/2003; lines 43; words 526)
