Major Superiors of Men and Women - Joint Document: Missionary Institutes of men and women founded in Italy

Pope Francis announced the Extraordinary Missionary Month in October 2019 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Pope Benedict XV’s Apostolic Letter Maximum Illud (1919), «with the aim of fostering an increased awareness of the missio ad gentes and taking up again with renewed fervor the missionary transformation of the Church’s life and pastoral activity» (Letter of the Holy Father Francis to Cardinal Filoni). We missionaries, in deeper harmony with Pope Francis’ intentions, hope that this Extraordinary Missionary Month of October 2019 will become a privileged opportunity for us to renew the ad gentes missionary zeal. So that our whole life, our programs, our work, our own structures can draw vital energy and criteria for renewal from the mission and the proclamation of the Gospel. As representatives of missionary Institutes of men and women founded in Italy (Combonians, Consolata’s, PIME and Xaverians), we want our voice to be heard by sharing joys, hopes and concerns in a period of changes in which, in relation to the challenges of the modern world, we missionaries sometimes find ourselves unsure but also encouraged to find new approaches. We write on behalf of many missionary brothers and sisters to whom we are sincerely grateful. People who work with passion and commitment, in inaccessible and dangerous places, in solidarity with people with whom they share distresses and dangers, often by risking their lives. Their example, their passion and self-denial, their life spent for others “in a crucifying effort” comfort and encourage us to continue. They are the ones who bear witness to us that it is good to devote one’s life to the proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, who died and rose for our salvation, and to devote ourselves to others. They are the ones who remind us that life is found only by giving it. We are particularly grateful to the many African, Asian and Latin-American missionaries that have revitalized our Institutes. The new vocational geography forces us to reconsider our community life and our way of living with people of different cultures. We know, indeed, that building intercultural communities will be an important challenge for the immediate future.

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