VATICAN - “Re-launch mission ad gentes with courage”: Presentation of "Eucharist and Mission" Pope John Paul II’s Message for World Mission Sunday 2004 (24 October)

Thursday, 29 April 2004

Vatican City (Fides Service) - The Catholic Church has altogether in the world 1,081 ecclesiastical circumscriptions (Archdioceses, Dioceses, Vicariates and Apostolic Prefectures...) considered missionary territories and they are entrusted to the care of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples. Besides these there are another 153 circumscriptions in the so-called “zone of silence” (China, Cambodia...). Working at the service of this immense missionary world there are over 85,000 priest (diocesan and religious), 450,000 women Religious and 1,650,000 catechists. “Although these figures may seem impressive and it is known that vocations to the religious life and the priesthood continue to flourish, this personnel is not enough to meet the growing needs of missionary territories” Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe, Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples said at a press conference on 29 April at the Holy See press Office to present Pope John Paul II’s Message for World Mission Sunday 2004.
In his address the Cardinal illustrated the Church’s missionary activity underlining the importance for today of the Pope’s call at the beginning of the Mission Sunday Message: “It is necessary to re-launch mission "ad gentes" with courage”. Referring to the many different institutions and activities all over the world which Propaganda Fide supports through the Pontifical Mission Societies, Cardinal Sepe mentioned 280 major inter-diocesan seminaries and 65,000 major seminarians; 110 minor seminaries and 85,000 minor seminarians; 42,000 Catholic schools; 1,600 Catholic hospitals; 6,000 Catholic dispensaries; 780 Catholic Care Centres for People with Leprosy; 12,000 Catholic social and charity institutions. The Cardinal underlined that the Church assists people of all faiths. “These social-charity structures are not only for Catholics, indeed they serve mainly non Catholics and non Christians” the Cardinal said mentioning India where 27% of the country’s charity institutions are run by the Catholic Church and Arab countries where most Catholic school pupils are Muslim children. Moreover these figures do not include all kinds of assistance given by Catholic missionaries to individuals and small parish communities or to widespread Catholic commitment especially in Africa to fight AIDS and other serious diseases which decimate whole populations such as cholera, diabetes, meningitis...
Besides supporting church structures all over the world the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples supports missionary institutions in Rome: the Pontifical Urban University, the only exclusively missionary university in the world with 1,300 students and 110 professors; two Pontifical Colleges San Pietro and San Paolo with 350 student priests from mission countries in Rome to complete their studies; the Pontifical Urban College with 140 student seminarians; the John Paul II Asian Cultural Centre with 45 students from China and Vietnam; Mater Ecclesiae College which provides formation for Catechists; Foyer Paolo VI for the formation of women Religious with 80 student Sisters; the International Centre for Missionary Animation (CIAM).
“The Church’s assistance to people in mission territories is not limited to a country or continent it is addressed to all peoples of all faiths, cultures, language and political systems - Cardinal Sepe concluded-. Above all the Church’s work of assistance is not something new of today, it dates to the very beginning when the first missionaries started evangelising and through charitable assistance helped to promote the human, social and cultural development of the local people”.
In his intervention, Father Massimo Cenci, PIME, Under Secretary of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples, illustrated the fundamental points of the Holy Father’s Mission Sunday Message 20004. “ The next International Eucharistic Congress will be held in Guadalajara, Mexico, this year in October, the missionary month par excellence - Father Cenci said- and in order to foster new missionary awareness around the Eucharist and create authentic inter-dependence between the mystery of the Eucharist and the mystery of the Church, the Holy Father links the Eucharist and Mission referring to them as inseparable”.
The Papal Message, which has five paragraphs, opens with a call to engage in mission ad gentes, still far from completion. Pope John Paul II encourages us to “share the Redeemer’s ‘thirst’ for souls to be saved; he indicates as witnesses Saint Theresa di Lisieux and Saint Daniele Comboni; he calls for new fervour, given the present day social-religious challenges; he links Mission Sunday with the 150th anniversary of the definition of the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception and invites us to contemplate the Eucharist ‘through the eyes of Mary’”.
The second paragraph offers a re-reading of the Encyclical “Ecclesia de Eucharistia”, linking the Eucharist with the Church: "The Eucharist builds the Church and the Church makes the Eucharist. “In fact the Church’s mission flows from the mission of Christ drawing strength through communion with His Body and Blood. The Eucharist is therefore the mystery in which the missionary Church is reflected in the sacrifice of her martyrs and the source from which she draws energy and life. From the Eucharist, gift of love sacrificed for all (…blood shed for you and for all), the Church learns the universality of salvation.”
The saving effects of the Eucharist, the celebration of the Lord’s death and resurrection, are prolonged in Eucharistic spirituality: “This is why, to be effective, missionary activity requires apostles who are "experts" in the celebration, adoration and contemplation of the Eucharist. And so Mission cannot do without contemplative souls who share the work of missionaries sustaining them with their prayers.”
“Immediately after the consecration, at the heart of the Eucharistic liturgy, there is an intensely missionary moment which corresponds by way of analogy to the Master’s missionary mandate. Jesus’ missionary command "Do this in memory of me" is entrusted to all ordained ministers. As believers are nourished at this Banquet they come to understand that the missionary duty consists in becoming "a offering pleasing to God", sanctified for the Holy Spirit "to be ever more one, in mind and heart" [Acts 4,32], and witnesses of His love to the ends of the earth. This is why in both her present and her eschatological dimensions the Church, missionary and a pilgrim by nature, renews the sacrifice of the Eucharist every day for the good of the whole world while waiting for the glorious coming of her Lord.”
Lastly the Pope refers to the 150th anniversary del Dogma of the Immaculate Conception (1854-2004), recalling that Mary was history’s first "tabernacle" and he says “like the Church and the Eucharist, so too Mary and the Eucharist are inseparably united”. (S.L.) (Agenzia Fides 29/4/2004; Righe 78 - Parole 1.016)
Pope John Paul II’s Mission Sunday Message 2004


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