Festival of the Mission 2022

Roma (Italia). From 29 September to 2 October, 2022 the 2nd edition of the Mission Festival (FdM) will take place in Milan, promoted by the Lombard Episcopal Conference (CEL) and organized by the Missio Italia Foundation (Cei) and by the Conference of Italian Missionary Institutes (CIMI), in collaboration with the Diocese of Milan.

The Mission Festival is a time of celebration and festivity, of reflection, of experiences, of witness of the outgoing Church, open to the world, to narrate the faith lived in the peripheries, founded on human brotherhood, and to help revitalize the mission ad gentes. It is a new way of communicating the Mission trying to express a new humanity according to the style of “Living by gift”.

“Living by gift” is in fact the theme of the 2022 edition, characterized by a logo created by Raffaele Quadri. In the center, there is a ball of colored threads that unwind from below. The sphere shape recalls the world, interconnected and inter-independent, which it is not defined by the outlines of nations, but by the ‘basic’ colors of red, green, blue, and yellow of the continents. With its plurality of cultures and expressions, in an intertwining of colored threads, it speaks of the creative dynamism of the missions and missionaries scattered around the globe, who accompany the journey of peoples with the proclamation of the Good News of the Gospel.

The location chosen for the Festival is significant. The various events: meetings, missionary testimonies, conferences, shows, moments of prayer, will take place in the Piazza delle Colonne of St. Lawrence in Milan and in other places of the ‘Milanese nightlife’ and meeting places of young people.

In addition to workshops, book presentations, and twinning, debates and meetings, music and artistic journeys, sports and aggregation, screenings and theater for laity and religious, families and young people, children and the elderly, believers of different faiths, the program offers ‘appetizers of the mission’: informal chats and stories from ‘the other world’ with missionaries willing to share their experience.

About 70 guests will animate the round tables and events in the city, including Fr. Christian Carlassarre, Bishop of Rumbek in South Sudan; Beatrice Maw of the Sisters of Reparation in Myanmar; Fr. Luigi Ciotti, founder of Libera; Fr. Gigi Maccalli, Fr. Giulio Albanese writer and journalist; the economist and former Prime Minister Mario Monti; Zakia Seddiki, widow of Ambassador Luca Attanasio; Sr. Alessandra Smerilli, Daughter of Mary Help of Christians and Secretary of the Dicastery for Service to Human Development; Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, President of the CEI.

Consecrated women belonging to the Religious Institutes of the Italian Union of Major Superiors (USMI) will participate or will be involved in the Festival, and will narrate the beauty of a missionary life “by gift”.

The Missions Sector of the Institute of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians requested the participation and involvement of the FMA Province Missions ad gentes Coordinators of Italy. Various FMA from Benin (Africa), from the Solomon Islands, and from the Italian Provinces who lived mission experiences this summer with groups of young people, will be present to share their missionary experience.

The Mission Festival, in fact, is not limited to the event itself. It is prepared by a Pre-Festival, made up of international twinning, missionary animation, projects in schools, collaborations with universities and schools of journalism, …  and will also have a Post, to nourish and give continuity to the experience in the local realities.

At the end of the Milanese days, on Sunday 2 October, the Archbishop of Milan, Msgr. Delpini, will celebrate Holy Mass in Duomo, which aims to be a new missionary relaunching and sending of the participants.

For more information and to download the updated program: www.festivaldellamissione.it