(ANS – Rome) – The theme for the 26th  Salesian Missionary Day (GMS) in conjunction with World Mission Sunday: the Faith Journey in Africa. With two letters the Rector Major and the General Councillors for Missions, Fr Vaclav Klement, and for Africa Madagascar region, Fr Guillermo Basañes, presented the theme. A proposal in line with the Pope's message “Called to radiate the Word of truth”and the events that the universal Church is living these days: the Synod on the new evangelization and the year of faith.

“In 2013 our attention turns to the African continent, where thanks to the missionary efforts of many provinces through Project Africa (1978-2005), most of the confreres working in this region today are local: about 1000 African Salesians! The freshness in faith of the young Churches, now making up some 150 million faithful, has really become a spiritual lung for all humankind”.

The reasons that have inspired the choice of the theme, says the Rector Major are

• the Returning to Don Bosco – walking with young people in faith: “We are aware that if a Salesian takes up his vocation and mission as catechist again after many years, he renews his sense of faith and being an educator to faith of the young. The theme of SMD 2013 aims to help us be more available as spiritual companions of the young, so that in the first instance we return to the practice of personal spiritual direction as part of being faithful to our calling”;
• evangelising the Salesian heart during the Year of Faith: “We also find ourselves in the context of  the Year of Faith (...) The theme of SMD 2013 helps us understand the urgency of the personal journey of faith, one that can never cease. We are disciples on the road and we seek daily, more and more, to follow the Master. If our heart is not evangelised we cannot become evangelisers of the young who are waiting for us, and we will not be able to animate our catechists in their important role”;
• open the heart to missionary frontiers with a knowledge of what is going on in the works from around the world.

“My dear friends, I invite you to accept the challenge of helping the young to embark on the journey of faith and walk with them as patient catechists” is the final exhortation of the Rector Major.

In a second letter Fr Klement and Fr Basañes present animation material for GMS 2013, fruit of the synergy of 12 Provinces and Vice-provinces of the region Africa Madagascar and sectors for the Missions and Social Communication.

The two councillors also remind them that the first recipients of the GMS are the same Salesians. Three goals you want to achieve: to learn from the young Churches in Africa; to deal with the figure of the African catechist and, as a joint initiative, to support the training of catechists and to fund teaching materials.

The theme of the Salesian Missions Day is very timely in the context of the Year of Faith proclaimed by the Holy Father Benedict XVI. The celebrations this year necessarily lead to the reflection about the relevance and importance of the initial proclamation of the Gospel, which was also the theme of the SDB-FMA Study Days in all continents in the course of this six-year period (2008-2014). Initial proclamation is directed not only to those considered as “non-Christians”, but also to “those who do not know Christ,”which include either the unbaptised, or the baptised who do not know Jesus Christ personally. And so today the Church feels its urgency in all continents.

Salesian Mission Sunday is not an isolated event in the year – in fact it does not indicate a particular day – but an opportunity to get to know during the pastoral year the missionary reality of a specific continent. It can become a powerful moment of missionary animation in the Salesian community, provincial or local, in youth groups, in the Salesian family, in educational and pastoral communities.

The texts of the two letters can be found in section GMS 2013 already open in sdb.org.

Published 19/10/2012