Extraordinary Missionary Month
27 September 2019 by Lawrie Hallinan
In 2019, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Pope Benedict XV’s Apostolic Letter Maximum Illud, Pope Francis announced that October will be an Extraordinary Missionary Month.
The Theme
For the Extraordinary Missionary Month, the Holy Father has chosen the theme ‘Baptized and Sent: The Church of Christ on a Mission in the World’. Awakening the awareness of the missio ad gentes, and reinvigorating the responsibility of proclaiming the Gospel with new enthusiasm, are themes that combine the pastoral concern of Pope Benedict XV in Maximum Illud with the missionary vitality expressed by Pope Francis in the Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium: “Missionary action is the paradigm of every work of the Church” (EG 15).
How to Live Your Own Extraordinary Missionary Month
There are four dimensions, specified by the Pope, to live more intensely the journey of preparation for the Extraordinary Missionary Month October 2019:
- A personal encounter with Jesus Christ living in His Church through the Eucharist, the Word of God, personal and communal prayer;
- Testimony: missionary saints, martyrs and confessors of the faith, as an expression of the Church scattered throughout the world;
- Missionary formation: biblical, catechetical, spiritual and theological;
- Missionary charity.
More information and resources at: https://www.catholicmission.org.au/about-emm
