{"id":3444,"date":"2020-03-09T22:22:34","date_gmt":"2020-03-09T21:22:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/15.188.244.8.xip.io\/audience-sending-missio-ad-gentes-1-20-2012\/"},"modified":"2020-06-09T20:55:48","modified_gmt":"2020-06-09T19:55:48","slug":"audience-sending-missio-ad-gentes-1-20-2012","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/neocatechumenaleiter.org\/en\/words-of-the-popes\/benedict-xvi\/audience-sending-missio-ad-gentes-1-20-2012\/","title":{"rendered":"Audience sending “Missio ad gentes\u201d 1-20-2012"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Audience for sending out of the \u201cMissio ad gentes\u201d1-20-2012 <\/h1>\n\n
<\/div>\n\n

Benedict XVI<\/h4>\n\n
<\/div>\n\n

Vatican City – Paul VI Room, January 20, 2012 *<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

On January 20, 2012, on the occasion \nof the publication of the \u201cDecree\u201d with which are approved the celebrations included in the Catechetical Directory of the Neocatechumenal Way, the Holy Father Benedict XVI has addressed those present with the speech we publish below.<\/em> \nTo this important event, which concludes the itinerary of \napproval of the Neocatechumenal Way (2008: Statute; 2010: Decree of \napproval of the Catechetical Directory of the Neocatechumenal Way; 2011: \nDecree approving the celebrations that accompany the various \nphases of the path of Christian Initiation. See page …) were present the initiators of the Way, Kiko, Carmen and Fr. Mario, all the itinerants of the world, many families on mission, the “Missio ad gentes” families already sent and the 15 new \u201cMissio ad gentes\u201d that the Pope has sent out on this occasion. In addition, present were the responsibles of the \ncommunities that have completed the Neocatechumenal itinerary, the presbyters of the Redemptoris Mater of Europe, the seminarians, the catechists and “Communitates in missionem” of Rome.<\/em><\/p>\n\n

“Dear Brothers and Sisters, \nAgain this year I have the joy of being able to meet and \nshare with you this moment of sending out for the mission. I extend a special greeting to \nKiko Arg\u00fcello, Carmen Hern\u00e1ndez and Fr Mario Pezzi, and an affectionate \nygreeting to you all: priests, seminarians, families, formators \nand members of the Neocatechumenal Way. Your presence today is a \nvisible testimony of your joyful commitment to live the faith, in \ncommunion with the whole Church and with the Successor of Peter, and to be \ncourageous heralds of the Gospel.<\/p>\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n

In the passage from St Matthew which we have heard, the Apostles receive a precise mandate from Jesus: \u201cgo therefore and make disciples of all nations\u201d(Mt 28:19).<\/em> Initially they had doubted, in their hearts there was still uncertainty, amazement at the event of the Resurrection. And it is Jesus himself, the Risen One \u2014 the Evangelist stresses \u2014 who comes close to them, makes them feel his presence, sends them out to teach all that he has communicated to them, giving them the certitude that accompanies every herald of Christ: \u201cAnd lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age\u201d (Mt 28, 21).<\/em> They are words that resonate loudly in your heart. You have sung Resurrexit, which expresses faith in the Living One, in the One who, in a supreme act of love, triumphed over sin and death and gives to human beings, to us, the warmth of God\u2019s love, the hope of being saved, a future of eternity. In these decades of the Way\u2019s life one of your firm commitments has been to proclaim the Risen Christ, to respond to his words with generosity, often giving up personal and material securities, even leaving your own countries, facing new and not always easy situations. Bringing Christ to people and bringing people to Christ: it is this that enlivens every evangelizing action. You do it in a way that helps those who have already received Baptism to rediscover the beauty of the life of faith, the joy of being Christian. \u201cFollowing Christ\u201d demands the personal adventure of the quest for him, going with him, but always also entails emerging from the closure of the self, breaking out of the individualism that all too often characterizes the society of our time, to replace selfishness with the community of the new person in Jesus Christ. And this happens in a profound personal relationship with him, in listening to his word, in taking the way he has pointed out to us, but it also happens inseparably in believing with his Church, with the saints in whom the true face of the Bride of Christ makes itself known ever anew.<\/p>\n\n

It is a commitment \u2014 as we know \u2014 that is not always easy. Sometimes you are present in places where a first proclamation of the Gospel is necessary, the missio ad gentes; often, instead, in areas which although they have known Christ have grown indifferent to faith: secularism has eclipsed the sense of God there and has clouded the Christian values. Here, may your commitment and your witness be like the leaven which, with patience, respecting the times, with a sensus Ecclesiae, causes the whole mass to rise. The Church has recognized in the Way a special gift which the Holy Spirit has given to our times and the approval of the Statues and of the \u201cCatechetical Directory\u201d are a sign of it. I encourage you to offer your original contribution to the cause of the Gospel. Always seek in your valuable work to be in profound communion with the Apostolic See and with the Pastors of the particular Churches, in which you are inserted. The unity and harmony of the Ecclesial Body are an important witness to Christ and to his Gospel in the world in which we live. Dear families, the Church thanks you; she needs you for the New Evangelization. The family is an important cell for the ecclesial community, where people are trained in human and Christian life. With great joy I see your sons and daughters, so many children who look to you, dear parents, to your example. About a hundred families are about to leave for twelve Missio ad gentes. I invite you not to be afraid: those who bring the Gospel are never alone. I greet with affection the priests and seminarians: love Christ and the Church, communicate the joy of having encountered him and the beauty of having given him everything. I also greet the itinerants, those in charge and all the communities of the Way. Continue to be generous with the Lord: he will not let you lack his comfort!<\/p>\n\n

The Decree approving the celebrations listed \nin the \n\u201cCatechetical Directory of the Neocatechumenal Way\u201d has just been read. \nThey are not strictly speaking liturgical but are part of the itinerary of \ngrowth in faith. It is another factor which shows you that the Church \n accompanies you with attention in a patient discernment which understands \nyour richness but also looks at the communion and \nharmony of the whole Corpus Ecclesiae.<\/p>\n\n

This fact affords me the opportunity for a brief thought on the value of the Liturgy. The Second Vatican Council defined it as the exercise of the priestly office of Christ and the work of his body which is the Church (cf. Sacrosanctum Concilium, n. 7).<\/em> At first sight this might appear strange, because the work of Christ designates the historical redemptive actions of Christ, his Passion, death and Resurrection. In what sense, then, is the Liturgy a work of Christ? The Passion, death and Resurrection of Jesus are not only historical events. They reach and penetrate history but transcend it and remain ever present in Christ\u2019s Heart. In the Church\u2019s liturgical action there is the active presence of the Risen Christ which makes the Paschal Mystery itself present and effective for us today, for our salvation. By this act of the gift of himself which is ever present in his Heart we are drawn and enabled to participate in this presence of the Paschal Mystery. This work of the Lord Jesus, which is the true content of the Liturgy, entering into the presence of the Paschal Mystery, is also a work of the Church which, since she is his Body, is a single subject with Christ \u2014 Christus totus caput et corpus \u2014 St Augustine says. En la celebraci\u00f3n de los sacramentos, Cristo nos sumerge en el Misterio Pascual para hacernos pasar de la muerte a la vida, del pecado a la vida nueva en Cristo. This applies very specially to the celebration of the Eucharist, which, as the culmination of Christian life, is also the hinge of its rediscovery, for which the Neocatechumenate strives. As your Statute state, \u201cthe Eucharist is essential to the Neocatechumenate, since this is a post-baptismal catechumenate lived in small communities\u201d (art. 13 \u00a7 1).<\/em> recisely to encourage people who have drifted away from the Church or have not received an appropriate formation to draw close to the riches of sacrament life, the Neocatechumens may celebrate the Sunday Eucharist in the small community, after the first Vespers of Sunday, according to the dispositions of the diocesan bishop. (cf. Statute, art. 13 \u00a7 2)<\/em>. However, every Eucharistic celebration is an action of the one Christ together with his one Church and is therefore essentially open to all who belong to his Church. This public character of the Blessed Eucharist is expressed in the fact that every celebration of Holy Mass is ultimately directed by the bishop as a member of the Episcopal College, responsible for a specific local Church (cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church,Lumen Gentium, n. 26).<\/em> It is the task of the celebration in the small communities \u2014 regulated by the liturgical books that must be faithfully followed, with the details approved in the Statue of the Way \u2014 to help all who follow the Neocatechumenal itinerary to perceive the grace of being inserted in the saving mystery of Christ which makes possible a Christian witness that can assume radical features. At the same time, the gradual growth in faith of the individual and of the small community should foster their insertion in the life of the large ecclesial community, whose usual place is in the liturgical celebration of the parish, in which and for which it is implemented . (cf. Statute, art. 6).<\/em> Nevertheless in this process it is also important not to be separate from the parish community, precisely in the celebration of the Eucharist which is the true place of the unity of all, where the Lord embraces us in the different states of our spiritual maturity and unites us in the one bread that makes us one body. (cf. 1 Co 10, 16 s).<\/em> Courage! The Lord does not fail to accompany you and I too assure you of my prayers and thank you for your many signs of closeness. I ask you also to remember me in your prayers. May the Blessed Virgin Mary help you with her maternal gaze and may my Apostolic Blessing, which I extend to all the members of the Way, sustain you. Many thanks!”<\/p>\n\n

(*) Cfr. \u00abL\u2019Osservatore Romano\u00bb, 21 January 2012.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Audience for sending out of the \u201cMissio ad gentes\u201d1-20-2012 Benedict XVI Vatican City – Paul VI Room, January 20, 2012 * On January 20, 2012, on the occasion of the publication of the \u201cDecree\u201d with which are approved the celebrations included in the Catechetical Directory of the Neocatechumenal Way, the Holy Father Benedict XVI has addressed those present with the speech we publish below. To this important event, which concludes<\/p>\n

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