Throughout the year on the 11th
of the month the community of Divyadaan commemorates Missionary Day.
Remembering missionaries, praying for them and animating the community have
kept alive the missionary spirit. There was something special this month. The
missionary group along with Fr. Tony D’Souza guided the community to understand
the missionary spirit and called in for a greater participation in looking at
the missionary dimension of the congregation. This took the form of a Triduum
celebration.
On the first day the community
dedicated the evening prayer moments praying for missions and missionaries all
over the world especially the ones facing difficult situations this was done by
initially introducing the theme of the year for Salesian mission day – ‘Come
Help Us’
On the second day the meditation
focused on the theme ‘Trust in me’. The intention was to help the community
realize that trust in god is the fundamental requirement for a missionary. This
is done with the help of readings taken from the biographical memoirs which
spoke about the missionary dimension of the Salesian society at its beginnings.
In the evening, Fr. Tony shared his views on the need to be missionaries. He
presented the views of the Rector Major as described in his dream for the
bicentenary. We also reflected on the document of the missionary formation of
the Salesians which was jointly prepared by the formation and the mission
commissions of the society.
On the third day the members of the
missionary group presented in gist the Vatican II document on the missions and
missionary, that is, Ad Gentes. The presentation of the document
in summary form brought out the most essential features that spoke about the
preparation and the requirements for personnel and missionary activity.
On the Commemoration Day the
meditation in the morning focused on what it means to be missionary, it also
focused on the call of Jesus to each and everyone. Thereafter the Eucharist
enhanced the theme ‘praying for all missionaries’ and retrospected the day when
the missionaries went on to have the first missionary expedition. The
Missionary Day celebration concluded with
a very inspiring recollection talk on understanding what it means to be a true
missionary and that the heart of a missionary is larger than him.
Cl. Felix Almeida sdb
No comments:
Post a Comment