(ANS - Rome) - A crowd of young people from the many islands of Oceania stretch out their hands towards Don Bosco asking him to come and help them: this is the poster for Salesian Mission Day 2016. But the gesture of those young people is also an invitation to Salesians in other continents to offer themselves generously as missionaries ad gentes, ad exteros and ad vitam for and to be part of the first proclamation of the Gospel in the marginalized areas and in the new frontiers in Oceania.

In presenting the current issue of Cagliero 11 and the materials for Salesian Mission Day 2016, Fr Guillermo Basañes, Councillor for the Salesian Missions, says: "Salesian Mission Day 2016 offers an excellent opportunity to:

discover and get to know better the peoples of this part of the world who are still quite unknown to many. It is an excellent opportunity to get to know better and to love more the young people of Oceania.

accept the invitation to become a missionary ad gentes and ad vitam in Oceania [...]

foster solidarity with the Salesian communities of the East Asia-Oceania Region by actively and generously participating in the SMD 2016 Project: the Oratory in Fiji.

"I have seen with my own eyes a huge cultural diversity” the Rector Major, Fr Ángel Fernández Artime, said as he recalled his visit to Oceania last spring. “For us in Oceania, this is indeed an opportune time. In all parts, there is a need for an urgent and compelling proclamation of Jesus Christ. One is immediately aware that there is an openness to the Gospel. You can sense it in the simplicity of the people who are able to welcome the Gospel as Good News. (...) This is fertile ground for the charism, and the proclamation of Jesus. It is a land where the charism becomes fruitful and takes deep roots, and it will bear even more fruit and become even more deeply rooted in the future if we are faithful to Don Bosco and to the young people of Oceania today."

 Published 8/1/2016