VATICAN - Pontifical Missionary Union: to carry out missionary animation with enthusiasm, creativity and in a spirit of communion

Saturday, 5 June 2021 pontifical mission societies  

Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - Father Dinh Anh Nhue Nguyen, OFMConv, was appointed Secretary General of the Pontifical Missionary Union (PUM) on May 1, and participated for the first time in the General Assembly of the Pontifical Mission Societies (from June 1 to 3), experiencing "great emotion", as he himself said in his speech. Expressing his gratitude to God and to the Superiors who have called him to carry out this task, he highlighted his recognition of the "important role of the Pontifical Missionary Union in the service of information, formation, and missionary awareness in the universal Church and in the local Churches". He has also addressed a special thanks to Fr. Fabrizio Meroni, his predecessor, "for the work that he has done in the last five years with such wisdom and dedication".
In 2020, PUM carried out 20 projects, despite the pandemic, and another 35 projects in 2021, many of which are still ongoing. "The projects launched are numerous and wide-ranging", underlined the Secretary General.
But we do not boast of these achievements, because everything is the grace of God, everything is the work of God. We only boast, on the contrary, as the Apostle Saint Paul said, the missionary of the first hours of Christianity, of our weakness caused by human, existential and structural limits, because in our weakness and in our limits the power of God for the mission is manifested which is HIS work, not ours".
Despite the difficulties, including financial ones, since the PMU lives on the generous contributions of the Pontifical Society for the Propagation of the Faith and the offerings of some national Directions, Father Dinh Anh Nhue Nguyen urged not to be discouraged, expressing the firm conviction that "the mission and missionary animation are not only a question of the distribution of money, but also and above all the courageous proclamation of Christ to all and the sharing of the joy of the Gospel and the love of God". For this reason, he reiterated his intention to "carry forward our common work of missionary animation of the universal and local Churches, always with enthusiasm, creativity, and in a spirit of communion and collaboration with all, in particular with the General Secretaries and the National Directors".
Next, the Secretary General of the PUM presented some projects for next year to be carried out together with the other General Secretaries and National Directors, in addition to completing those that are in progress, always having as objective the formation and missionary animation of all the people of God.
First of all, the publication in English of the four fundamental reports presented at the International Conference, promoted by the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples in November 2019, on the theme "From Maximum illud to Evangelii gaudium. On the urgency of the missionary transformation of the Church". A second project refers to the analysis and meditation of the Word of God each Sunday from a missionary-catechetical perspective. "In our opinion, the renewal of zeal for mission and for missionary animation starts and restarts precisely from the prayerful reading and rereading of the message of Christ and God in the Gospels and, in general, in the Bible", underlined the Secretary General.
Together with the other Pontifical Mission Societies, biblical-missionary refresher courses will be designed and implemented for priests, seminarians, catechists and lay animators. For catechists, in particular, together with Agenzia Fides, we are thinking of a series of volumes on the life and witness of catechists in mission lands.
In addition to the intention of renewing and intensifying the collaboration with the national and diocesan Directors of the PMS for missionary animation, especially in countries of ancient Christian tradition and in the territories where a structure of the PMS has not yet been established or is still at the beginning, Father Dinh Anh Nhue Nguyen emphasized, in particular, the desire to launch "the organization of what we call the missionary Triduum, the three days of prayer, songs, preaching, meditation on the paschal mysteries of Christ from a missionary perspective".
Finally, on a strictly academic level, the Secretary General of PUM indicated two other projects: the publication of the fundamental volume of Biblical Theology of Mission. Analysis of the key passages for a renewed biblical-missionary spirituality, and, in the long term, the creation of a "missionary Bible", a kind of Bible commented from a missionary-catechetical perspective, "which could be a Vademecum for each missionary and each animator of the mission". (SL) (Agenzia Fides, 5/6/2021)


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