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Each year in October Catholics are invited to pray, reflect and act on the universal mission of the Church. It’s important that during this month the emphasis of each pastoral and personal activity be placed on this theme. Throughout the world, and therefore also in Europe, the Christians of the Catholic Church are called to unite to restore a sense to their mission. What mission? That of Jesus, who was sent by the Father, and who sent in turn his disciples to bring the Good News to all peoples. What Good News? That of a God who is our Father, a Son who is our brother and a Holy Spirit who inspires us with good thoughts, good words, good attitudes and good actions. What changes? Everything changes for each person who is touched by the Gospel. Our industrialized Western world has a need to discover hope because often it is reduced to despair. It must find new reasons for believing and for hoping. Our children have a need to discover that they have brothers and sisters in the world who await signs of their love. Our adolescents and our youth have a need to discover projects that wrest them from the boredom and futile pleasures of their world. Adults too must form a higher ideal that that of their personal well-being. John Paul II proclaimed the year from October 2004 to October 2005 the Year of the Eucharist. It’s important to end this year in the best possible way. In his Apostolic Letter “Mane nobiscum Domine” he wrote: “Can we not make this Year of the Eucharist an occasion for diocesan and parish communities to commit themselves in a particular way to responding with fraternal solicitude to one of the many forms of poverty in our world? I think for example of the tragedy of hunger which plagues hundreds of millions of human beings, the diseases which afflict developing countries, the loneliness of the elderly, the hardships faced by the unemployed, the struggles of immigrants. We cannot delude ourselves: by our mutual love and, in particular, by our concern for those in need we will be recognized as true followers of Christ. This will be the criterion by which the authenticity of our Eucharistic celebrations is judged”. In this Year of the Eucharist we have let ourselves be touched by the grace of this sacrament of communion in which Jesus gives himself for us to share and becomes an example to follow. Consequently the 79th World Missionary Day to be celebrated on 23 October shall be an important moment to re-invigorate the witness that European Catholics bear to peace, justice and solidarity in their continent and throughout the world.
