Rome (Italy). From 7 October to 8 November 2024, 12 Daughters of Mary Help of Christians coming from different Countries of the world participated in the XXVI Course of Missionary Ongoing Formation at the Pontifical Salesian University of Rome, entitled “Challenges of the mission today”.
The objectives of the course were: revitalize the missionary dimension of one’s vocation; reflect on some theological and pastoral themes related to the mission of the Church; promote sharing of missionary experiences.
During the five weeks, the participants received a theological-spiritual formation in an atmosphere of sincere fraternity and communion. The missionary Sisters had the opportunity in this period to reflect, update themselves, revive their commitment to meet the challenges that the mission offers through a contemporary reading of human existence, in its socio-cultural, religious, and anthropological dimensions.
The group also had the opportunity to live some rich extra-academic experiences of encounter, of “Church in out-reach”, as Pope Francis says, in which, “it is missionary disciples who take the first step, who are involved and supportive, who bear fruit and rejoice.” (EG, 24). The following were particularly significant:
- the visit to the migratory reality of the Scalabrinian Fathers at the Church of Jesus the Redeemer;
- the visit to the Pontifical Mission Societies (PP.OO.MM), in which during the morning spent at the Palazzo della Propaganda Fidae, they visited the various International Secretaries of the 4 PP.OO.MM (Pontifical Society for the Propagation of the Faith, Pontifical Society for Missionary Childhood, Pontifical Society of Saint Peter the Apostle, Pontifical Union of Missionaries);
- the pilgrimage to the places where Don Bosco stayed in Rome;
- the meeting with the Community of Sant’Egidio;
- the Pilgrimage in the footsteps of Saint Francis of Assisi;
- the audience with the Holy Father, on 30 October in St. Peter’s Square;
- the visit to the premises of the Salesian General Postulation at “Zeffirino Namuncurà” Community of the Salesians of Don Bosco.
At the end of their experience in the Generalate, the missionaries expressed gratitude for having felt “at home” in the Mother House, for having had the opportunity to meet the Councilors of the Sectors, and to experience the sense of a beautiful and large Family that lives in different contexts and faces the challenges that the mission offers with boldness and hope.
In her meeting with them, Mother General, Sister Chiara Cazzuola, invited the Sisters to focus on the missionary passion that characterized the Founders:
“Mother Mazzarello’s words invite us to be essential in life, reminding us that it is necessary to ‘learn to love the Lord’ and this requires a constant journey, but also a clarity of perspectives. If we have concentrated our expectations and hopes in the Lord, we find Him again as the center and deep meaning of our existence. Our Founders lived constantly as seekers of God and deeply rooted in Christ. Centered in Him, like the vine and the branches, they were able to live the absolute radicality of the ‘cetera tolle’, to become instruments of salvation, manifestation of the merciful Love for the young people of their time.”
Mother continued, “”Sharing the dream of our founders, we are called to rediscover with even more enthusiasm and responsibility the sense of ‘walking together’ as educating communities with young people, to give them reasons for hope, for joy, and awaken in them the meaning of a life given for love, the meaning of missionary spirit, of being protagonists in view of change and of a more just and fraternal society.”
At the conclusion of this “time of grace”, of theological, spiritual, and charismatic pause in which they renewed their missionary passion, the wish for the missionary Sisters is a fruitful return to the mission, open to fresh listening to the questions and choices of life always new that God will put on their way to be “rays of light and hope” for all those they meet.
