Month: October 2020

131TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE BIRTH OF THE WORK OF ST. PETER THE APOSTLE (1889)

131TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE BIRTH OF THE WORK OF ST. PETER THE APOSTLE (1889)


The Work of St. Peter the Apostle promotes, in Christian communities, the awareness of the need to develop the local clergy and consecrated life in recently founded missionary churches. It animates and coordinates missionary collaboration in all the local churches, through the offer of prayer, sacrifices and money, to support the formation of future priests and religious of the young churches, and the necessary preparation of their formators. The Work of St. Peter the Apostle was born in France (1889) at the suggestion of Mons. Cousin, Apostolic Vicar of Nagazaki, Japan. Mgr. Cousin, missionary bishop, wanted to train indigenous priests, capable of proclaiming the Gospel and making the Church grow in the midst of their own people. For this, it was necessary to build and support seminaries in the ‘mission lands’. To carry out this project, Bishop Cousin turned to Jeanne Bigard and her mother Stefanie, from a wealthy family from Normandy. Pope Leo XIII, with the Encyclical Letter Ad extremas Orientis, recommends the Work to the whole Church, and on May 3, 1922, Pius XI declared the Work of St. Peter the Apostle “Pontifical”, together with the other two precedents (Propagation of Faith and Missionary Childhood). “As can easily be seen, priestly and religious vocations blossom in the so-called mission countries as a sign and fruit of the vitality of faith and these regions are already transforming into missionary countries – underlined the Secretary General Fr Guy Bognon, PSS during the ‘General Assembly of the Pontifical Mission Societies of 2019 -. The formation of the young people called, whose number increases every year,

PRAYER INTENTION OF THE HOLY FATHER

PRAYER INTENTION OF THE HOLY FATHER

WE PRAY THAT THE PLANET'S RESOURCES ARE NOT PLUNDERED, BUT SHARED IN A FAIR AND RESPECTFUL WAY

The Holy Father dedicated the encyclical letter “Laudato Sì” to the theme in which he writes “our common home is also like a sister, with whom we share life, and like a beautiful mother who welcomes us into her arms”. The Pope writes “Since the middle of the last century, overcoming many difficulties, the tendency has been affirming to conceive the planet as a homeland and humanity as a people living in a common home. An interdependent world does not only mean understanding that the harmful consequences of lifestyles, production and consumption affect everyone, but, above all, ensuring that solutions are proposed from a global perspective and not only in defense of the interests of some countries. Interdependence forces us to think of a single world, a common project. But the same ingenuity used for enormous technological development fails to find effective forms of international management in order to resolve serious environmental and social difficulties. In order to tackle the underlying problems, which cannot be solved by the actions of individual countries, a global consensus is essential that leads, for example, to planning sustainable and diversified agriculture, to developing renewable and low-polluting forms of energy, to to encourage greater energy efficiency, to promote more adequate management of forest and marine resources, to ensure access to drinking water for all ”.

SAINT TERESA OF THE CHILD JESUS:
UNIVERSAL PATRONESS OF THE MISSIONS

SAINT TERESA OF THE CHILD JESUS:
UNIVERSAL PATRONESS OF THE MISSIONS

Thérèse Martin was born in Alençon, France, on January 2, 1873 into a family that regularly donated their contribution to the Propagation of the Faith.

At the age of seven, Thérèse was enrolled in the Work of the Holy Childhood which will leave her heart with a keen interest in the baptism of Chinese children, of which she wanted to become the spiritual godmother.

On 9 April 1888 he entered the Carmel of Lisieux taking the habit on 10 January of the following year and making his religious profession on 8 September 1890, on the feast of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary.

Death took her after a serious illness on the afternoon of September 30, 1897.

Author of “Story of a Soul”, published for the first time in 1898, she was canonized by Pius XI on May 17, 1925 and proclaimed Universal Patroness of the Missions , at the same time as St. Francis Xavier , by the Pope himself, on December 14, 1927.

Saint John Paul II said of her: “The road you have taken to reach this ideal of life is not that of large enterprises reserved for a few, but is instead a way within everyone’s reach, the” little way “, the road of confidence and total trust in the grace of the Lord. It is not way to trivialize, as if it were less demanding. It is actually demanding, as the Gospel always is. But it is a way permeated with that sense of trusting abandonment to divine mercy, which makes light even the most arduous commitment of the spirit “, ( Homily for the proclamation as” doctor of the church “of St. Pietro – Sunday 19 October 1997).