N. 142 - October 2020
Newsletter for Salesian Missionary Animation
Publication of the Missions Sector for SDB Communities and Friends of the Salesian Mission
World Mission Sunday:
Prayer, Sacrifice and Solidarity
Fr- Alfred Maravilla SDB, General Councilor for Missions
October is the missionary month for the whole Catholic Church.
Its high point is the celebration of World Mission Sunday on the
penultimate Sunday of October. It was instituted by Pope Pius XI in
1926 at the request of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith.
Through the Pope’s annual Message, the World Mission Sunday
reminds us that the Church is missionary by her very nature. Hence, every member of the Church is called to share
in the responsibility for mission ad gentes, that is, share the gift of faith with those who have not yet received it.
When prepared with care and lived with real fervour, “Mission Sunday” becomes a precious opportunity to form
mission-conscious believers. Through organised initiatives for mission animation, every Catholic is stirred up to
actively participate in the Church’s mission, above all through prayer and by offering of sacrifices that come to us
through sickness or in ordinary daily life. Connected with prayer and sacrifices, and never isolated from these, is
solidarity for material and financial needs of the Church’s missionary activities. Pope Pius XI, John XXIII, John Paul
II had wisely stipulated that all offerings collected on World Mission Sunday be destined in their entirety to the
needs of the Church’s mission ad gentes. Indeed, financial sacrifices from the faithful ‘are essential for sustaining
and building up the Church and for showing love’ but must be ‘enlightened and inspired by faith’ (Redemptoris
missio, 81).
By being engaged, in different ways, in the Church’s missionary activities, every believer’s faith grows, is strength-
ened and revitalised with ‘fresh enthusiasm and new incentive’ (Redemptoris missio, 2). Let every ‘Mission Sunday’
be an opportunity to mobilise all the members of our EPCs in fostering prayer, sacrifice and solidarity for the
missions: those in places with deep Christian tradition and those where they have just received the faith, those
with sufficient resources and those weighed down by poverty, those freely developing along with those suffering
persecution!
Questions for Reflection and Sharing
How can I foster mission consciousness through the World Mission Sunday?
How can we mobilize our EPC to foster prayer and solidarity for the missions?
Every year since 1875 the departing missionaries received and continue
to receive a crucifix full of meaning.
Da Mihi Animas Coetera Tolle: this is the motto that has characterised
the Sons of Don Bosco from the beginning. This brief Salesian prayer,
acquires a particular glow in the missionary context: to leave everything,
even one's own land, security and culture, to dedicate oneself without
limits to those to whom one is sent, to be instruments of salvation for
them.
The Holy Spirit who descends on the Good Shepherd, as he did in the
river Jordan, now descends on Christ present in the pastoral dynamism of
the Church. Any missionary activity without the Holy Spirit, without his
light, without his discernment, without his strength and without his holi-
ness, is reduced only to a series of empty activities, only that they are
carried out in a distant place.
"Go, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of
the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" (Mt 28:19) is the heart
of the missionary mandate of the Risen One. These words give us the
mandate to make all people disciples of Jesus: The Greek text emphasiz-
es the mathêteúsate, "make disciples", which is much more than docete
(to teach), and which is fulfilled through three other verbs (vv.18.19):
"Ide", "baptizing" and "teaching". Evangelization requires the attitude of
an "outgoing Church", so as to reach everyone, offering the fullness of
God's gift, through words and works; words that teach all that the Master has revealed to us; works: all
the creative educational-pastoral of being a missionary, full of initiatives, which bring dignity and human-
ity to the poorest young people; but above all offering the greatest of all works: immersion in the sacra-
mental grace of baptism, which leads all people to become part of the fullness of life in the mystery of
God, the communion of Father-Son-Holy Spirit.
