Mission Intention for the Month of August

(August 01, 2011) Western Christians: That Western Christians may be open to the action of the Holy Spirit and rediscover the freshness and enthusiasm of their faith.
Often in his mission intentions the Holy Father asks us to pray for people in Asia and Africa, the mission territories, the places where Christianity has taken hold only recently. During this month of August Pope Benedict is asking us to pray for the Church in the West that covers Europe, America and Australia. At the same time he reminds that because of the rise of secular belief systems, the entire world has become a mission territory. Sadly, faith is rapidly disappearing from some of these territories. “An interior desert results,” says Pope Benedict, “whenever the human being, wishing to be sole architect of his nature and destiny, finds himself deprived of that which is the very foundation of all things.” To counter such Western secularization, the Pontiff recently established the Pontifical Council for the New Evangelization. He charged the council to help resurrect faith in countries where long-established Churches are experiencing an "eclipse of the sense of God." He explained that there has been a troubling loss of the sense of the sacred which has even called into question foundations once deemed unshakeable. There has been the questioning of faith in God, the revelation of Jesus Christ as the one Saviour, and the breakdown in family system and the acceptance of natural moral law.” This month we join Pope Benedict XVI in praying for the church in the Western World that it may open itself to the Holy Spirit and allow it to refresh our faith.