missionary animation afm
NEWSLETTER № 2 11th March 2009
Dear Confreres,
With this issue, I wish to introduce the themes of both the February and the March copies of the ‘Newsletter for Salesian Missionary Animation’, [NSMA]. We are in the Autumn Season of 40-days, ‘Lenten’ in the Northern Hemisphere, and Fr Václav speaks of it as ‘at the heart of the Church’s Mission’.
This issue of our own Newsletter examines the readings of the Sunday Lectionary Year B to discover how it speaks to a Missionary Vocation.
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THE COVENANT OF GOD’ LOVE FOR US
In the February Issue of NSMA, Fr Chávez reminds us that mission is a response to God’s redeeming love. This redeeming love has been part of God’s loving concern for humanity throughout the ages. It has been made most obviously visible in the Covenants of Love made with humanity. The ‘COVENANT’ is the theme of Sundays 1-5 of the 40-Day Season in Year B.
The Covenant is traced first of all in the Old Testament readings:
NOAH – receives the Covenant of purification through the waters
ABRAHAM - receives the Covenant of a great nation with its own land
MOSES – receives the Covenant of the Law giving true Wisdom
THE PROPHETS – proclaim the Covenant of a promise of restoration
JEREMIAH – proclaims a future New Covenant
The fulfilment is made known through the WORD in the New Testament:
The Gospels of the Evangelists, Mark (Yr.B) and John
MARK – reveals the fullness of the Covenant in the Beloved Son
JOHN – explores the depths of this Redemptive Covenant
PAUL (& Hebrews) – draw out the meaning of the Covenant in the Mission.
MISSIONARIES OF THE COVENANT
A careful reflection on each of the persons who mediate God’s Covenant show a true missionary, who shuns the allures of those who do not know God and place themselves without any reserve at the disposal of God, fully committed to carry out God’s Plan. In each case it involves sufferings of being jeered at, being physically demeaned with suffering and in the case of the prophets being put to death. All these become types of the Christ, who in front of all commits himself totally to his Father’s will at his baptism, when he embraces his own death as the path that both he and his Apostles must accept. Fortified by the Holy Spirit, the Apostles become the new Missionaries of the Great New Covenant of Love and are able to both live and preach the folly of the Cross as the source of our Redemption.
[P.T.O]
