Messaggio della Consigliera per le Missioni _ 14 dicembre 2017_Inglese

1. FirstMissionaryExpedition
Rome, 14 December 2017
Dearest Sisters,
We have boarded the great ship of the
Missionary Expedition of the 140th
! By now, we
have arrived at the other ‘Shore of the Mission’, in
every corner of the world, with the beautiful and
participated Celebrations.
It was truly an enthusiastic and sincere hymn of PRAISE, and of GRATITUDE, to the Lord
because the charismatic roots have reached the ends of the world, on all the Continents! The
strong missionary impulse was the moving force of this year of celebration.
I extend to every FMA and to all the Educating Communities, my grateful THANK YOU
for your active participation that was an engaging, creative, joyful, expression of a strong sense of
belonging to God and to the Institute. I felt strongly in everyone the joy of BEING FMA and / or
belonging to the Salesian Family. ‘Magnificat’ to the Lord, GREAT is his love for us!
I continue to thank the Lord for the great missionary re-awakening in the whole Institute and
I pray it was also a LIGHT for young people who have vocational restlessness. I hope that after the
140th
, the groups of Missionary Childhood, the missionary groups, and the Missionary Volunteers
have also grown in number and quality.
In the last two months, I had the grace of living the 140th
celebrations in a true and proper
Missionary Province, in Brazil, St. Theresa Province – BMT. On last October 22, I lived with
overflowing joy the World Missionary Day in the Archdiocese of Manaus and I was able to
participate in the huge Eucharistic Celebration, animated by various groups of Missionary
Childhood and Missionary Adolescence. At the conclusion, there was a missionary sending of many
seminarians of Philosophy and Theology, from the Major Seminary of Manaus. It was a very
beautiful experience with a multitude of the faithful. It was an out-going missionary Church!
Dearest Sisters, the echoes that have come to me personally and to the Sector are abundant,
beautiful, meaningful! I invite you to visit the Blog ANDATE (http://andatefma.blogspot.it). There
you will find many initiatives that warm the heart and that encourage us to light and keep alive the
missionary fire in the hearts of the young, of the children, of the families, of all the lay
collaborators. There is still so much more to publish ...
I am sure that from this 140th
many promising initiatives will be born that will reveal an
Institute, and as a consequence, Provinces in missionary out-reach!
Let us remember that around December 14, 1877, the first Missionaries - young,
enterprising, happy, courageous, convinced of the meaning of that missionary mandate - finally
arrived at the dreamed of land: Uruguay. Let us remember them and ask for their missionary
audacity and the courage to risk being bearers of the Good News of Emanuel, "God with us"!

2. FirstMissionaryExpedition
ATTENTION Sisters!
The 140th
does not end here. The story continues! As missionaries of hope and of joy, we
desire to go ahead with the young to mission horizons. For 2018, our monthly reflection will focus
on the fate and the history of young migrants, unaccompanied minors, children ... of the helpless,
the least, the "favorites" of God. With them and for them, we want to GO OUT, to MEET and to
BE CLOSE TO. This will be part of the path that concerns the project "For a common home in
the diversity of peoples", about which I sent you a letter last October 22nd. Going out, meeting,
and being close in this Common Home, which is our world, where there is room for everyone and
for each one.
With a heart warmed by a strong missionary apostolic zeal, according to the "Da mihi
animas cetera tolle" and the words "I entrust them to you", we remain in communion and open
to the "new" that will come!
With sisterly, grateful affection, and a strong embrace.
Councilor for the Missions
alaide@cgfma.org
We remain in prayerful communion with the New-missionaries who began the
discernment process in view of their destination on December 13th.