(ANS - Rome) - Next Sunday, 20 October, the 87th World Mission Sunday will be celebrated. To mark the occasion, the Councillor for the Salesian Missions, Fr Václav Klement, has sent a message to all the Salesians, through the missionary magazine “Cagliero 11”.

Dear confreres

and friends of the Salesian missions!

Cordial greetings during the missionary month of October. I thank you all for your prayers during the month of September for the 36 new missionaries and for Salesian missionary vocations.

Having accompanied more than 200 new missionaries during the six year period from 2008 to 2014, I thank the Lord for his constant call! The Salesian missionary vocation is very beautiful! It is the best expression of our charism, our spirituality is made available to the whole Church! I thank the Lord for this grace to accompany many confreres in their journey of discernment of this beautiful vocation “within the Salesian vocation”!

How beautiful it is to accompany the first young Salesians from Albania, Russia, Myanmar, Madagascar, Togo, Ukraine, Cuba, China to respond well to the missionary call! The first missionaries from young Provinces show the trust of the Lord in us! The freshness of the faith in the ‘global South of the world’ invites all to let ourselves be surprised by the gift of faith!

I wish you all a fruitful celebration of World Mission Sunday 2013 as an opportunity to revive our faith and help the Church to journey to all the the outskirts of existence where Jesus Christ is not yet known and loved!

Fr. Václav Klement, SDB

Councillor for the Missions

Published 18/10/2013