{"id":18310,"date":"2025-01-21T18:08:44","date_gmt":"2025-01-22T02:08:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/?p=18310"},"modified":"2025-04-22T19:08:30","modified_gmt":"2025-04-23T02:08:30","slug":"sfsd2025-missionary-expeditions-yesterday-apostles-on-mission-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/es\/2025\/01\/21\/sfsd2025-missionary-expeditions-yesterday-apostles-on-mission-today\/","title":{"rendered":"SFSD2025: Missionary Expeditions Yesterday \u2013 Apostles on Mission Today"},"content":{"rendered":"

(ANS \u2013 Turin) <\/strong>\u2013 Cardinal Crist\u00f3bal L\u00f3pez, Salesian of Don Bosco, Archbishop of Rabat, was the key figure for the third day of the Salesian Family Spirituality Days 2025. After presiding at the morning Eucharist in the Basilica of Mary Help of Christians, he gave the fundamental report in the afternoon. In this circumstance, developing the theme of the mission \u2013 on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the First Missionary Expedition \u2013 the cardinal illustrated the deep and current value of the mission in clear and vivid language, warning of possible and frequent errors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On his third participation in the SFSD, Cardinal L\u00f3pez first briefly summarized the many areas of work and the many dimensions of the fruitfulness of the Salesian Family’s missions \u2013 from the point of view of evangelization, education, social promotion, agricultural development, the dissemination of trades, health care, the dissemination of communications, the protection of cultural minorities\u2026 “In summary, we should rather ask ourselves what the Salesian missionaries did not do,” he commented.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And yet, as he added after examining the many activities carried out: “Was this their mission? Was being a missionary about doing all these activities?\u201d His lucid and concrete analysis distinguished the authentic meaning of mission \u2013 in short, love \u2013 from mere activities carried out to manifest it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the course of his address, the cardinal carried out an effective distinction that separated common but erroneous attitudes on the missions from the authentic value of the Salesian mission. Thus he listed:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013 Confusing mission with apostolic activities. Cardinal L\u00f3pez emphasized that \u2018the mission is to love\u2019 and is not reduced to educating, building, or healing because it has to do, if anything, with being \u2018signs and bearers of God’s love for young people’;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013 Seeking a reward in love. On the contrary, the missionary must not love in order to be loved, but offer an “unconditional, free and expansive” love, like God’s love;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013 Believing that the mission is for a few specialists. Instead, every Christian is called to be a missionary wherever they are, without the need to leave for distant lands;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013 Connecting the mission to a geographical dimension. The mission is universal and must be lived in every context, not only in traditional “mission countries,” since even territories of ancient Christian tradition need missionaries;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013 Believing that going as missionaries elsewhere does not make sense. With this point, apparently in contradiction to the previous ones, Cardinal L\u00f3pez stressed that the missionary dimension of the Church is based on the sharing of faith and that the presence of missionaries remains fundamental to awakening the missionary conscience in everyone;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013 Thinking that the mission is to implant the Church. In this regard, the cardinal stressed that the main mission is the proclamation of the Kingdom of God, not establishing ecclesial structures. The cardinal also highlighted the commitment of good missionaries in cooperating with all believers and all people of goodwill;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013 Forgetting the role of the Holy Spirit. We must not place ourselves at the center and consider ourselves the first authors of the mission: the Holy Spirit is the first missionary and is already at work in the hearts of people even before the arrival of the missionaries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The reflection of Cardinal L\u00f3pez was, therefore, a heartfelt invitation for a return to the essentials. In his concluding words, the cardinal gave a precise summary of his entire address, stating: “We are all missionary disciples of Christ and his Kingdom (\u2026) As a church, we must live at the service of the mission always and everywhere, and the mission, which consists in announcing and promoting the Kingdom of God, is realized, for us of the Salesian Family, in loving and being signs and bearers of God’s love for young people”.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(ANS \u2013 Turin) \u2013 Cardinal Crist\u00f3bal L\u00f3pez, Salesian of Don Bosco, Archbishop of Rabat, was the key figure for the third day of the Salesian Family Spirituality Days 2025. After presiding at the morning Eucharist in the Basilica of Mary Help of Christians, he gave the fundamental report in the afternoon. In this circumstance, developing the theme of the mission \u2013 on the occasion of … Continuar leyendo SFSD2025: Missionary Expeditions Yesterday \u2013 Apostles on Mission Today<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":10336596,"featured_media":18313,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_wpcom_ai_launchpad_first_post":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[516714022],"tags":[35890],"class_list":["post-18310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-salesian-world-news","tag-featured"],"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p59ePG-4Lk","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/salesianbulletin.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/sfsd2025-feature.jpg?fit=1600%2C833&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10336596"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18310"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18310\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18359,"href":"https:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18310\/revisions\/18359"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/salesianbulletin.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}