World Mission Sunday to highlight that youth can evangelize too

October 19, 2018 CNA Daily News News Briefs 0 Print

Vatican City, Oct 19, 2018 / 09:44 am (CNA/EWTN News).- As the Church prepares to celebrate World Mission Day on Sunday, the head of the Vatican’s evangelization congregation said the timing of the day with the youth synod provides an opportunity to remind young people they too are called to spread the Gospel.

“Together with young people, we bring the Gospel to everyone,” is the theme of Pope Francis’ message for the 92nd World Mission Day, to be celebrated Oct. 21.

The Holy Father’s message for this day falls during the “synod for young people with young people,” Cardinal Fernando Filoni said at a press conference Oct. 19. “Therefore, together with the young we bring the Gospel to everyone.”

Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, Filoni emphasized a concept found in Lumen gentium: that every baptized person, by virtue of his or her baptism, has the mission to evangelize and to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ – and this applies also to the young, he said.

“The pope, when he speaks with young people, says: life is a mission. Do not be inactive. Every life has a missionary characteristic,” Filoni stated.

Archbishop Giampietro Dal Toso, president of the Pontifical Mission Societies, underlined that every Christian, no matter their state in life, can pray and lend monetary support to the missions, as able.

Filoni also recalled that last year, Pope Francis asked for the entire month of October 2019 to be devoted to prayer and reflection on Ad gentes, a Second Vatican Council decree on the missionary activity of the Church, promulgated by Pope Paul VI in 1965.

Francis said he hopes a special month dedicated to evangelization will be a promising time of reflection on the testimony of missionary saints and martyrs, the Bible and theology, as well as catechesis and charitable missionary work of the Church.

World Mission Sunday was begun in 1926 by the Congregation for Divine Worship and is now promoted by the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples and the Pontifical Mission Societies.

Pope Francis’ message for the 2018 edition of World Mission Day was published by the Vatican earlier this year. In a video message, he said, “prayer is the first ‘missionary work’ – the first! – that every Christian can and must do, and it is also the most effective, even if this cannot be measured.”

“In fact, the principal agent of evangelization is the Holy Spirit, and we are called to collaborate with Him,” he said May 28.

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Pope Francis urges Passionists to help ‘the crucified of our age’

November 20, 2020 CNA Daily News 5

Vatican City, Nov 20, 2020 / 04:30 am (CNA).- Pope Francis urged members of the Passionist order Thursday to deepen their commitment to “the crucified of our age” as they mark the 300th anniversary of their founding. 

In a message to Fr. Joachim Rego, superior general of the Congregation of the Passion of Jesus Christ, the pope challenged the order to focus on helping the poor, the weak and the oppressed.

“Do not tire of accentuating your commitment to the needs of humanity,” the pope said in the message issued Nov. 19. “This missionary calling is directed above all towards the crucified of our age — the poor, the weak, the oppressed and those discarded by many forms of injustice.” 

The pope sent the message, dated Oct. 15, as the Passionists prepared to launch a Jubilee year celebrating the foundation of the order by St. Paul of the Cross in Italy in 1720.

The Jubilee year, whose theme is “Renewing our mission: gratitude prophecy, and hope,” will begin on Sunday, Nov. 22, and end on Jan. 1, 2022.

The pope said that the order’s mission could only be strengthened by an “inner renewal” among the Passionists’ over 2,000 members, present in more than 60 countries. 

“The implementation of this task will require a sincere effort of inner renewal on your part, which derives from your personal relationship with the Crucified-Risen One,” he said. “Only those crucified by love, as Jesus was on the cross, are able to help the crucified of history with effective words and actions.” 

“In fact, it is not possible to convince others of God’s love only through a verbal and informative proclamation. Concrete gestures are needed to make us experience this love in our own love that is offered by sharing the situations of the crucified, even totally spending one’s life, while remaining aware that between the proclamation and its acceptance in faith there is the action of the Holy Spirit.”

At 10.30 a.m. local time on Nov. 22, the Passionist Jubilee will begin with the opening of the Holy Door in the Basilica of Sts. John and Paul in Rome, followed by an inaugural Mass. Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin will be the principal concelebrant and the event will be livestreamed.

The Jubilee year will include an international congress, on “The wisdom of the cross in a pluralistic world,” at the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome on Sept. 21-24, 2021.

There will also be a number of opportunities to gain indulgences throughout the year, including by visiting the founder’s birthplace of Ovada in the northern Italian region of Piedmont.

The Passionists trace their origins back to Nov. 22, 1720, the day that Paul Danei received the habit of a hermit and began a 40-day retreat in a small cell in the Church of San Carlo in Castellazzo. During the retreat, he wrote the Rule of “The Poor of Jesus,” which laid the foundations of the future Congregation of the Passion.

Danei took the religious name Paul of the Cross and built up the order that would come to be known as the Passionists because of their commitment to preaching the Passion of Jesus Christ. He died in 1775 and was canonized in 1867 by Pope Pius IX.

Passionists wear a black habit with the distinctive emblem over their hearts. The Passion Sign, as it is known, consists of a heart with the words “Jesu XPI Passio” (the Passion of Jesus Christ) written inside. There are three crossed nails beneath these words and a large white cross at the top of the heart.

In his message to Passionists, the pope quoted from his 2013 apostolic exhortation “Evangelii gaudium.” 

“This significant centennial anniversary represents a providential opportunity to move towards new apostolic goals, without giving in to the temptation to ‘leave things as they are,’” he wrote. 

“Contact with the Word of God in prayer and reading the signs of the times in daily events will enable you to perceive the creative presence of the Spirit whose outpouring over time, points out the answers to humanity’s expectations. No one can escape the fact that today we live in a world where nothing is the same as before.”

He continued: “Humanity is in a spiral of changes that call into question not only the value of the cultural currents that have enriched it so far, but also the intimate constitution of its being. Nature and the cosmos, subject to pain and decay due to human manipulation, take on worrying degenerative traits. You too are asked to identify new lifestyles and new forms of language in order to proclaim the love of the Crucified One, thus giving witness to the heart of your identity.”


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