AMERICA/BOLIVIA - "Missionary Community, share the Word": a new missionary impulse arises from the Word of God

Thursday, 9 September 2021 bible   missionary animation   local churches  

La Paz (Agenzia Fides) - The Church of Bolivia celebrates the Month of the Bible in September, placing particular emphasis on the relationship between the Word of God and the Mission, inviting us to meditate on the book of the Acts of the Apostles. "The pastoral care of the Church and its evangelizing work are animated by the Scriptures, making it the center and its fundamental impulse", underlines Mgr. Waldo Barrionuevo Ramírez, CSsR. Apostolic Vicar of Reyes, at the Head of the Biblical Animation Section of the Pastoral Area of Evangelization of the Bolivian Bishops' Conference.
"May the Sacred Scripture become the soul of all pastoral care, may it be its heart and its main source that gives it life - he continues.
Thus the Church is nourished by the Word of God to nourish the faith and spirituality of all her faithful in her pastoral activity, which is manifested in her various evangelizing actions such as: the liturgy, catechesis, basic ecclesial communities, families and the Mission". This year the illuminating verse that guides the Month of the Bible is from the Acts of the Apostles: "You will receive power when the holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth" (Acts 1,8). Msgr. Barrionuevo Ramírez urges us to also remember the final document of the Fifth Conference of Aparecida, recalling the Lord's mandate to "go and make disciples of all peoples", "to assume and continue with the great missionary enthusiasm of the Church in Latin America and in the Caribbean". "We are aware - continues the Bishop - that mission is a constitutive part of the identity of the Church, called by the Lord to evangelize all peoples. 'Its raison d'etre is to act as the leaven and soul of society, which must be renewed in Christ and transformed into the family of God' (GS n. 40). For this reason, missionary activity must, above all, animate the missionary vocation of the baptized, strengthening the roots of their faith and awakening their responsibility as a missionary disciple, to be their witnesses to the ends of the earth". This year, the Month of the Bible is celebrated in the context of the Ecclesial Assembly of the Church in Latin America and the Caribbean, with the motto "We are all outgoing missionary disciples", and in the year dedicated to Saint Joseph, Patron of the universal Church, who with his example teaches us above all to be obedient to the Word of God. "May the material for reflection from the book of the Acts of the Apostles prepared for this year lead us to the commitment to assume our missionary vocation, and be encouraged and accompanied by the Holy Spirit who makes us witnesses and prophets, we can bring the Word of God to every corner of our country", concludes Mgr. Waldo Barrionuevo Ramírez. (SL) (Agenzia Fides, 9/9/2021)


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