AMERICA/ECUADOR - The Church in Ecuador officially launches the National Mission: “The Church is in need of a good house-cleaning.”

Quito (Agenzia Fides) – The Catholic Church in Ecuador officially began the National Mission with a Mass concelebrated in the Basilica “del Voto Nacional,” on April 23, during the celebration of the Plenary Assembly that is being celebrated by the country's Bishops.
The ceremony was presided by Archbishop Antonio Arregui Yarza of Guayaquil, President of the Ecuadorian Bishops' Conference, and concelebrated by all the nations' Bishops. It was also attended by the Apostolic Nuncio, priests from across the country, religious, and a large number of Catholic faithful.
“We hope that the Mission will set off with strength, with the enlivening strength of the Christian spirit,” Archbishop Antonio Arregui Yarza said in his homily, recalling that the mission is “fulfilling the great task that the Lord left us...to go out into the world and preach the Gospel and baptize, and those who believe will be saved, this is the message of Salvation. There is no other message that can offer the human heart a greater proposal. It is not only an intellectual proposal, but connection with a divine life that helps to overcome our weaknesses and the darkness of our lives, to rise the summit where we see the Lord, where we see Him glorious and risen and we are filled with joy, where we find the meaning of our existence.”
“Aparecida said that the Church needs a good house-cleaning,” the President of the Bishops' Conference said in his homily. “All of us, her children, are invited to rediscover that we have been sent. Just as the Father sends the Son, the Son sends us. Today, we are in need of a new Pentecost, to leave behind our comfort, our laziness. As Christians, we can conform ourselves to this world. At the beginning of the Mission, the entire Church, every baptized faithful, every priest, every bishop, should rediscover the Word; the Word should become conviction, identification with Christ; this should be a new Pentecost.”
After Communion, the President of the Ecuadorian Bishops' Conference presented each Bishop with a replica of the icon for the national mission, a DVD with material for working in the diocese, and a light representative of the light of Christ that illumines this process that the Church in Ecuador is about to begin. (RG) (Agenzia Fides 28/4/2009)