2009-10-01 17:36:06

Holy Father’s Mission Intention for the Month of October


(October 1, 2009) Here we have the Mission Intention of the Holy Father for the month of October: That all the people of God, whom Christ has commanded to go and preach the Gospel to every creature, may diligently fulfil their missionary responsibility. Pope Benedict XVI reminds us of the celebration of the Mission Sunday and tells every catholic with the words: “Let it not be forgotten that the first and priority contribution that we are called to offer to the missionary action of the Church is Prayer.” Reflecting on the words of Jesus that harvest is plentiful but the labourers are few, the Pope says that every time we pray the Our Father we put an emphasis on “Thy Kingdom come,” recalling that God’s Kingdom comes by the missionary activity of the Church. On the World Mission Day last year, Pope Benedict had appealed to every believer to create a “spiritual network of prayer” for evangelization. Prayer should accompany the journey of missionaries so that the proclamation of the word will be effective through God's grace. In his Letters, Saint Paul often asks the faithful to pray for him so that he might proclaim the Gospel with confidence and conviction. Prayer needs to be accompanied by sacrifice. The redemptive value of suffering, accepted and offered to God with love, derives from the sacrifice of Christ himself, who calls the members of his Mystical Body to share in his sufferings, to complete them in their own flesh. The sacrifice of missionaries should be shared and accompanied by the sacrifices of all the faithful. Pope Benedict has urged those engaged in the pastoral care of the sick to teach them about the efficacy of suffering and to encourage them to offer their sufferings to God for missionaries.







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