Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) – Saint John Leonardi “with his luminous life made God present to mankind. This is the meaning of his missionary life.” These were the words of Cardinal Ivan Dias, Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, who on Sunday, October 18, World Mission Sunday, presided a Mass at the Altar of the Chair of St. Peter in St. Peter's Basilica, for the conclusion of celebrations for the 400th anniversary of the death of Saint John Leonardi (1541-1609), Founder of the Order of Clerks Regular of the Mother of God and co-founder of the College of Propaganda Fide.
Reflecting on the life's work of St. John Leonardi, “so that the light of Christ would shine among his contemporaries and the warmth of the merciful love of God could be seen,” as Pope Benedict XVI wrote in his Message to the Superior General of the Clerks Regular of the Mother of God, Cardinal Dias recalled that “we can follow Christ if the luminous features of His Face are reflected in the faces of those who belong to Him. He is truly preached only when His presence is made visible through the presence of people who, touched by God's Grace, bring God back into the midst of men.”
The Prefect of the Congregation then reflected on several fundamental aspects of the missionary zeal of St. John Leonardi, who “firmly believed in a renewed missionary spirit, not merely propagandist strategies, but as a permanent attitude of a love that urges us on, that pushes us forward, and motivated by a boundless creativity...His missionary spirit is not geographical, in the sense that in order to come out of himself he did not have to abandon his familiar environment...Going out is not everything, if we are not possessed by the cause of Another. Saint John Leonardi never left Italy and yet lived an intense missionary life.”
Towards the end of his life, John Leonardi longed for a reform of the Church, which he wanted to see completely missionary, as Pope Paul V writes. “The mission is the antidote against a Church that is self-referential and thus, tired and motionless,” Cardinal Dias said. The life of faith, personal, communal, and ecclesial takes on new strength every time it widens its horizons in preaching the Gospel...St. John Leonardi is aware of the fact that it is not about planning and multiplying writings, if there are no men willing to carry them out with complete self-denial. This is, therefore, the central idea that supports all the proposals that then lead to the foundation of the College of Propaganda Fide: form men 'all'Apostolica,' from the same place and environment which they will be sent to.” According to him, this “operative unity” should be composed of local priests, who from the beginning knew that their world would be that of farther-away frontiers, from both a geographical and social point of view; formed and tempered, who would consider martyrdom, who would give everything to become all things to all people in Jesus' name; ready to intervene where the faith was abandoned or resulted uncomfortable to those who heard it.”
“The mission is a fight, agony, passion: it is a full life, with all the abundance of humanity. Participation in the mission, St. John Leonardi says, does not indifferent...but should be considered as a fundamental law of life for the entire community. Communion calls for a realizing of one's co-responsibility in the mission, in the reciprocal exchange and helping all believers to learn to preach the Gospel. This was what was in the heart of Saint John Leonardi, the Cardinal said, and what we hope – through his intercession - can become increasingly more alive in the hearts of his spiritual children, the beloved Clerk Regulars of the Mother of God, and all the members of the great family of Propaganda Fides, who recognizes St. John Leonardi as their co-founder and model.” (SL) (Agenzia Fides 19/10/2009)
