EUROPE/ITALY - Sister Luigina Coccia: "Mission for us is everywhere, it is the world"

Rome (Agenzia Fides) - "Regarding the missions, Pope Francis has illustrated the complexity of the relationship between the local Churches and the universal Church: the Church today is called to remain firmly rooted in her own local reality, but with one mind and one heart open to the universal Church," said Sister Luigina Coccia, Superior General of the Comboni Missionary Sisters, during the study days organized by the Office for Missionary Cooperation between the Churches of the Italian Bishops' Conference and the Missio Foundation and this year in its twentieth edition (see Fides, 22/7/2022).
"A world in turmoil and in motion compels the Church of our time to live out the mission with the peoples and for the peoples; it is a universal mission that the Church must face today, no matter in which corner of the world she is. The Christian of today is everywhere a missionary ad gentes, he is an emissary of the universal mission of the Church, because today's world has more and more multicultural and universal features", emphasizes the Superior General of the Comboni Missionary Sisters, who this year celebrates its 150th anniversary of founding (see Fides, 20/4/2002). The existential and not just geographical peripheries, the way of inhabiting them, with a style of closeness and the knowledge of recognizing those who are marginalized along the way, the poor: these are the three "paths" of reflection proposed by the religious in her lecture, which she gave as part of the second study day with the focus on mission as cooperation and exchange between the churches.
"We must accept the challenge and know how to move in new ways between the local and the global. Recognizing the existential peripheries near and far and listening to one another…. The mission for us is everywhere, it is the world," continues Sister Luigina, who concludes by emphasizing: "The distant lands, the peoples excluded from the network of global reality continue to be a call for us, because the Church asks us to be close to them. We think of the Amazon, of the indigenous peoples of Africa or the Americas, but at the same time we are asked to turn our gaze to the whole world, because everywhere is a mission for us, precisely because of this universality that characterizes the world today".
Listening, dialogue and sharing are some of the words chosen by the participants to describe the days in Assisi which ended with an eye to the second edition of the Mission Festival scheduled in Milan next 29 September-2 October. (EG) (Agenzia Fides, 2/9/2022)

Share:

formation

---

---

missionary animation

---

---

pontifical mission societies

---

---