EUROPE/ROMANIA - Pontifical Society of the Holy Childhood: Jesus’ “torch” at the heart of missionary summer Camps

Bucharest (Fides News Agency) – Accompanying children and young people in discovering that mission does not begin with what we do, but with the One who lives within us. This is the educational aim of two missionary summer camps promoted by the National Direction of the Pontifical Mission Societies (PMS) in Romania, led by Father Eugen Blaj.

The initiatives were the eighth edition of the National Missionary Formation Camp, held in Odorheiu Secuiesc from 3 to 8 August, and the fifth edition of the Missionary Campus in Cetatea de Baltă, held from 24 to 28 August.

“It is in the encounter with Christ, in the depths of the heart, that man rediscovers his true identity; and it is from this communion that the capacity to go beyond oneself and become a gift is born,” explains Matilda Andrici, head of the Pontifical Society of the Holy Childhood in Romania.
In Odorheiu Secuiesc, the National Missionary Formation Camp was held at the “St Joseph” Children’s Home, where the Greek Catholic Sisters of the Congregation of the Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary, together with the superior of the community, Sister Emilia Trifaș, warmly welcomed some seventy children and adolescents.

The guiding theme of the formation programme was “The story of the five torches”. Blessed Pauline Marie Jaricot, foundress of the Pontifical Society for the Propagation of the Faith; Bishop Charles de Forbin-Janson, founder of the Society of the Holy Childhood; Jeanne Bigard, foundress of the Pontifical Society of St Peter the Apostle; Blessed Paolo Manna, founder of the Pontifical Missionary Union; and Pope Pius XI showed the children, each through his or her own life, that mission can take different forms, but always springs from the same source: allowing oneself to be reached by God and allowing His light to shine through one’s life.

The story of the torches, however, concludes with a sixth torch, represented by little Thérèse, the child who longed to be a missionary of Jesus and continued to live this desire amid the frailty of illness. She represents every child who becomes a missionary by welcoming the Light and refusing to keep it for themselves.

“Here the children discovered the deeper meaning of the image: we are not the Light. Christ is the Light. To be missionaries means to welcome Him, to cherish Him in our hearts and to let Him shine through our lives, so that He may reach another heart,” Matilda Andrici emphasizes.

The Missionary Rosary also became a tangible experience of this communion. Together, the children meditated on the mysteries of Christ’s life with Mary and formed a small Living Rosary, recalling Blessed Pauline Jaricot’s intuition: to unite people who are far from one another in living prayer, so that contemplation may become communion and communion may become mission.
Two weeks later, a similar experience took place in Cetatea de Baltă. There, alongside the theme of the forthcoming World Mission Day, “One in Christ, United in Mission”, which was at the heart of both summer camps, the children were given a second invitation: “Everyone can become a saint”.
The Missionary Campus, now in its fifth edition, was organized by Father Sorin Ivan, parish priest of the Greek Catholic Church of the “Most Holy Trinity” in Cetatea de Baltă, in cooperation with the Pontifical Mission Societies in Romania. It was primarily aimed at children from the surrounding area. They prayed, sang, participated in Holy Mass, and shared moments of pilgrimage and fellowship.
“Through the story of the torches and the witness of little Teresita, they understood that holiness does not belong to a distant world. It begins when the heart makes room for God: when it forgives, when it serves, when it loves without expecting anything in return, when it prays for someone it may never meet,” added the head of the Pontifical Society of the Holy Childhood in Romania.
“St John Mary Vianney was also proposed as a spiritual figure throughout the program. He was linked to Blessed Pauline Jaricot by a profound spiritual friendship: two different lives, yet both with the same desire to belong entirely to Christ, through prayer, charity and self-giving.”
(EG) (Fides News Agency, 13/9/2026)

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