Nome società
Titolo n otiziario
Newsletter for Salesian Missionary Animation
A Publication of the Mission Department for the Salesian Communities and Friends of the Salesian Mission
De a r
Sale-
sian
missionaries
and friends of
the Salesian
Missions!
What does it
mean for us
to begin the
Year of Faith (11 October 2012 - 24
November 2013)? For me it is a year
of grace, a great opportunity to be
grateful for the gift of faith and
share it.
Among the new missionaries
of 2012 I cannot forget three: Sam-
uel – he grew up as a follower of the
African traditional religion, baptised
at 18 years; David – originally from a
Hindu family and Taras from Ukraine
who converted with his the whole
family when he was in secondary
school. All have gone as St. Paul to
share the precious gift of God as
missionaries for life. The encounter
with Jesus fills our hearts, we can-
not but speak about him! Small ges-
tures - to offer a personalised prayer
for my friend who is a Buddhist, a
Hindu, a Muslim friend or without
religion; invite him to the Oratory;
narrate a parable of Jesus - every-
thing is simple and possible.
I invite everyone to pray that
all members of the Salesian Family
may know how to share the gift of
faith, especially with children and
young people who have never met
Jesus Christ. The Missionary Rosary
helps us in the month of the Holy
Rosary to pray in order to live with a
bigger heart which is open to those
who do not know Christ!
Fr. Václav Klement, SDB
Councilor for the Missions
Initial Proclamation & the Missionary Rosary
for the Year of Faith
I n an interview Cardinal Fernando Filoni, Prefect of the
Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples invites to
celebrate the Year of Faith from the perspective of the initial
proclamation of Christ. In fact during this six year period the Mis-
sions Department organised the Study Days on the Initial Procla-
mation of Christ in the various regions (Europe on November 4-10,
2010; South Asia on August 7 - 11 2011; East Asia on August 14 –
18, 2011; Oceania on August 21 - 25, 2011;The Salesian presence
among Muslims on July 30 to 4 August 2012; Africa on November 5 –
9, 2012; America in 2013).
These Study Days have brought to light that initial procla-
mation is the short, joyful and engaging story of Jesus. It is di-
rected towards those who do not know Christ, to the baptised who
have abandoned the practice of their Christian faith, to those who
live a cultural and sociological Christianity, to those who practice
the Christian faith occasionally during the sacraments of initiation
or acts of popular piety, and to those who practice their faith out
of habit, hence this practice has not enabled them to personally
encounter Christ as their personal Savior.
Initial proclamation is just the start of the process of evan-
gelisation, which has the chronological priority but that is not ex-
tended in time. Since its goal is to stir up [in the interlocutor] an
interest in Jesus Christ that can lead to an initial adhesion or a re-
vitalization of faith in Him and the desire to deepen this knowl-
edge, initial proclamation necessarily leads to the next path of
evangelisation, which is the catechumenate.
The first form of initial proclamation of the Gospel is the
testimony of every Christian's life, the life of the Salesian, of the
Salesian community and of the whole Christian community. This, in
turn, is always an invitation and a challenge to the interlocutor to
seek answers to existential questions, in a conscious, more person-
alised and deeper manner.
Cardinal Fernando Filoni also
points out that the Year of Faith should
be first of all a year in which we should
pray for the faith, that is, to ask the
Lord for this gift. Without this, all our
initiatives would lose their raison d'etre.
For this reason it was decided to pro-
mote the Missionary Rosary (white for
Europe, red for America, yellow for Asia,
blue for Oceania, and green for Africa).
So that everyone can pray to the Mother
of the Lord for the initial proclamation
of the Gospel in every continent.
