OCEANIA/PAPUA NEW GUINEA - The Bishop visits the remote district of Menyamyan: "Every baptized person is a missionary"

Thursday, 18 July 2019 missionary animation   extraordinary missionary month   evangelization   mission  

Lae (Agenzia Fides) – To show attention, care, love and solidarity towards the indigenous families and communities that live their faith in the remote Menyamyan district; to reflect on the meaning of baptism and the mission of every Christian: in this spirit, Bishop Rozario Menezes SMM (of the Company of Mary of Monfort), at the head of the diocese of Lae, visited the small Catholic communities residing in Menyamya district which is located in Papua New Guinea, belonging to the Morobe Province, where about 85,000 people live.
In that remote district the presence of the Catholic Church is visible through an elementary school and a Caritas center of help and solidarity. As by Agenzia Fides learns, the Montfortan Bishop visited the small local Catholic communities in recent days exhorting them to "pray and prepare to celebrate World Mission Sunday and the Extraordinary Missionary Month of October 2019" and to "always help those who are in need".
Bishop Rozario noted that, in remote districts such as Menyamyan, there are often difficulties in "understanding and living the essence of Christian baptism" and invited the faithful to "not lose sight of the purpose of their life and their mission": "The danger is to subtly begin to live according to religious practices, rather than to be like Jesus. Let us not forget that God adopts us as his children through baptism, rather than remaining firm in the comfort of our Christian life, let us remember that we should become like Christ "Christian baptism is a starting point, not a point of arrival, and it is the source of the mission", he underlined.
The Bishop's visit was an opportunity for the people of Menyamyan to reflect on some points highlighted by the theme of the Extraordinary Missionary Month of October 2019, that is "Baptized and sent: the Church of Christ on mission in the world". "Mission is not the work of the Christian but is the work of Christ himself. If our Christian mission does not flow to and from the adoration of the Incarnate Word, we are only running aimlessly, trusting in the human work that is always limited and weak".
The Bishop concluded: "Jesus Christ lived a full life, involving and giving all of himself. His mission was completely incarnated in the world. Becoming the Word Incarnate, he wanted to teach men by approaching them, becoming one of them, sharing their environment and their problems. Thus he made men like Him and gave us the way of imitating Christ as a way of holiness. This real life, this divine life we communicate and give to the world. This is the sense g of mission". (PA) (Agenzia Fides, 18/7/2019)


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