Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - "I note with satisfaction that one of the pastoral initiatives you consider to be most important for the Church in Ecuador is implementing the 'great mission' identified by the Latin American Episcopate at Aparecida, Brazil, and confirmed in the Third American Missionary Congress celebrated in Quito this past August.” With these words, the Holy Father Benedict XVI addressed the Bishops of Ecuador, whom he received in an audience on October 16, for their “Ad limina apostolorum” visit.
After expressing his condolences for the death of Cardinal Antonio José González Zumárraga, Archbishop Emeritus of Quito, “who with such great self-denial and fidelity has served the Church until his last days, “the Pope pointed out that “ The call the Lord Jesus made to His disciples...must be a constant theme of meditation and the raison d'etre of all pastoral activity for the entire ecclesial community. Today, as in other times and places, men are in need of a personal encounter with Christ, in which they can experience the beauty of His life and the truth of His message.”
In order to face the many challenges in the Church's mission, “in a cultural and social atmosphere that seems to forget the deepest spiritual roots of its identity,” the Holy Father encouraged the Bishops to open themselves to the Holy Spirit, so that under his divine impulse, “the missionary zeal of the initial stages of the preaching of the Gospel, and the first proclamation of the Good News in your land, are renewed. For this to occur, it is necessary to make generous efforts to spread the world of God so that no-one remains without this indispensable spiritual nourishment, source of life and light. The reading and meditation on Sacred Scripture, individually or in community, will lead to a deeper Christian life and a renewed apostolic fervor among all the faithful.”
In this laborious missionary task, the Bishops can depend primarily upon priests, whom he encouraged to accompany “with prayer, affection, and closeness, guaranteeing them a permanent formation that will help them maintain vitality in their priestly life.” The Pope advised the Bishops that they encourage the religious in their testimony of consecrated life, “which has borne so many fruits of holiness and evangelization in your lands,” and to continue on “in a wide-ranging and generous form of vocational pastoral care, instilling in the youth a lively enthusiasm for Christ and the great Gospel ideals. This effort should be accompanied by the greatest care in selecting seminarians and in their intellectual, human and spiritual formation.”
In concluding his address, Benedict XVI highlighted the Ecuadorian Church's need for a “mature and committed lay people who, with a solid doctrinal formation and a profound interior life, live their specific vocation of illuminating all human, social, cultural and political reality with the light of Christ... Although the activity of the Church must not be confused with political concerns, it must, through reflection and moral judgments, offer its own contribution to the entire human community, also on those political questions that particularly affect human dignity.” Among these, the Pope mentioned the promotion and stability of the family, the defense of life from conception until natural death, and the responsibility of parents in the moral upbringing of their children.
After encouraging the Bishops to “place particular emphasis on charitable activities, in which the merciful love of Christ is manifest,” the Pope invoked the intercession of the young Ecuadorian Saint Narcisa de Jesús Martillo Morán, so that all the local Churches of Ecuador, “filled with faith and hope, may launch themselves with enthusiasm in sowing the Gospel in the hearts of all the men and women of that blessed land.” (SL) (Agenzia Fides 17/10/2008)
