Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Lyon (Fides Service) - On Thursday 5 May Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe, Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples presided a solemn mass for the feast of the Ascension at the St John the Baptist Cathedral in Lyon. Earlier there had been the inauguration of the House of Prayer and Mission formerly the home of Pauline Marie Jaricot (1799/1862) who founded the Society for the Propagation of the Faith .
“«Go therefore and teach all nations baptising them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit » (Mt 28,19). This was the message which the Risen Christ entrusted to the Apostles as he left this earth . This missionary command is for all of us on this feast day of the Ascension. Jesus, missionary sent by the Father return home, but his mission continues” Cardinal Sepe said in his homily. After thanking Cardinal Philippe Barbarin archbishop of Lyon, the auxiliary Bishops, other Cardinals and Bishops of other diocese for coming to Lyon for the occasion, and greeting the civil authorities, and the national directors in Lyon from all over the missionary world to attend their annual general assembly usually in Rome and held for the first time in France, Cardinal Sepe commented on the missionary significance of the Ascension.
After his resurrection before returning to the Father, “the Lord joined his disciples on the «set mount» which became a sort of launching pad for Jesus and the disciples. From there the Risen Lord returned home, but not without making an extraordinary promise: he will be with them always… “until the end of time” (Mt 28,20). But the disciples too were about to set out to go to all peoples on earth without exclusion. They have the Gospel to communicate, the Good News that through baptism we enter into communion with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit and we are saved.”
The Lord made three specific requests of the apostles: “go out to all nations; baptising them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit; teach them all that I have told you”. “Mission is not optional - the Cardinal said -, nor is it a personal undertaking it is a response to a precise command from Jesus. There are no privileged categories to evangelise. Mission concerns the entire world. Every one of Christ’s disciples, no one excluded, is affected by the command to “go”, although each in different ways.”
Cardinal Sepe then encouraged those present to “read again the spiritual legacy left to the Church by venerable Pauline-Marie Jaricot, to whose extraordinary prophetic intuition we owe the Society for the Propagation of the Faith”. The daughter of a wealthy businessman she spent all she possessed for help the missions and to help those in need. “May this humble daughter of the elect Church of Lyon inspire in us missionary zeal - the Cardinal said -. May she make us willing and generous announcers everywhere of the Gospel of love” and Cardinal Sepe ended his homily as follows: “As we contemplate the mystery of the Lord’s Ascension may He help us to understand ever more deeply the spirit which animated venerable Pauline Marie who founded the Missionary Society”. (S.L.) (Agenzia Fides 6/5/2005 - Righe 39; Parole 529)
