Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Mexico City (Agenzia Fides) – From 16 to 19 September 2010 the 14th National Meeting of the Union of Sick Missionaries (UEM) will take place in Saltillo, Coahuila, with the slogan: " I am a missionary and I bring all people to encounter Christ ". According to information sent to Fides by the national office of the Pontifical Mission Societies PMS in Mexico, the Union of Sick Missionaries (UEM) intends to offer a positive response to an increasingly dehumanised world by helping sick people and disabled people to realise they are still useful in society.
The Union of Sick Missionaries UEM (Union de Enfermos Misioneros), was started in 1928, when Marguerite Godet, who dreamed of being a missionary but, being immobilised by illness, offered herself as a "sick missionary" to the Paris Foreign Missions, and this was the beginning of the Union of Sick Missionaries. Today the Union is organised and promoted by the Pontifical Mission Societies and its members are chronically ill or elderly persons who desire to offer their suffering and their life for the missions. Initiatives and animation are organised at the national and local level.
One of the Union's principles is that Sick Missionaries are co-responsible for the Church's missionary activity, they offer their pain and solitude with joy and patience for the redemption of all men and women, they are Christians who pray for the spread of the Gospel in the world, and who offer their suffering for the sanctification of missionaries and for priestly religious and missionary vocations. (CE) (Agenzia Fides 21/07/2010)
