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PONTIFICIUM OPUS A SANCTA INFANTIA MISSIONARY BULLETIN N° 9 July 2001 _____________________________________________________________________________
ince the publication of our last bulletin I have had the opportunity to visit various continents, participating in a number of meetings with children and animators, visiting the institutions we assist and consequently encountering hundreds, at times thousands, of children. On the one hand, smiling children, happy to share their faith and their bread with other youngsters. On the other hands, poor children, children of war, slave children, children with AIDS, street children. At times poverty and happiness come together and amidst the want of the most basic necessities, we see smiles and sense joy. At other times it is not so: These are places where our aid does not yet reach; there are children who feel hunger for bread and for God; and they are many. While it is a beautiful thing to see thousands of children united in showing the world their faith and their mission, it is sad to see children who do not know Jesus and who lack everything. I recently came across a brief story which I would like to tell you: A man sees a girl begging for charity, it is a cold winter night and the girl has little to cover her and nothing to eat. The good man gives her some money but feels anger towards God. "Lord", he asks "why do You allow such injustice? Do something!". The man arrives home, he opens the door and hears the voice of God crying out "I have done something! ... I made you!". Often we do not realise that God made us to be His instruments in charity. If we truly want a more just and united society, we must begin with the children. We must teach them to share and teach them to receive, seeing therein the hand of God. We need to put our shoulders to the wheel, we need - in the words of the Holy Father - a new "fantasy in charity". We must make every effort to invent new forms of aid. Millions of children depend upon us, upon our inventiveness, upon our efforts. No initiative is too small and bringing them all together we can look thousands of under-privileged children directly in the eye. In the final analysis, it is Christ Himself who looks at us from the imploring gaze of those youngsters.
Fr.
Patricio
Missionary
Mail "We would just like to say thank-you. Thank-you
for having helped us so much in our school. We had no teaching materials
and you sent us books on French, geography, mathematics, history and other
subjects. Now we can read and write well. Do not tire of doing good. My
name is Cecilia and I am a refugee girl. I am here with my friends at
school with books so we can read. There are 32 of us refugee children in
this school".
"We have opened a small kindergarten in the garage
of the parish hall. We have had to limit subscriptions and have around 70
children who attend on a fairly regular basis, seven of them are Muslims.
Apart from the programme laid down by the Ministry of Education, we have
established a weekly hour of catechism. We scarcely need to tell you of
the happiness of these children and their parents. They seem to be deeply
changed; they play together, they learn to hold a pencil, to draw and to
behave well. At Christmas we managed to organise a little show with songs,
poems and theatre. This constituted an invitation - for the occasion of
the birth of the Child Jesus - to put the values of solidarity, fraternity
and love into practice. Everyone from surrounding villages - both
Christians and Muslims - looks with hope and sympathy to the work we have
achieved with your support and contributions". "In the diocese of Mannar particular attention is
given to the animation of children in order that they help other children
who live in more needy circumstances. To this end, each year we do
everything possible to organise and gather funds in support of the Holy
Childhood. Despite the fact that our diocese suffers a great deal on
account of the war and that children have been displaced, I am content
with the response we have received to this annual appeal. In terms of
amount, our collection is the second biggest in the whole country after
the archdiocese of Colombo which holds the first place".
"I was greatly impressed by the sight of children
from rural areas - ill, barefoot and living in comfortless conditions -
put 10 centavos (of the local currency) in the Missionary Childhood
collection box. Of course it is not very much, but witnessing such
situations I was able to understand the idea of our Founder, Msg. De
Forbin Janson: "may the children save the children". With my
heart bursting, I have often seen this gesture of co-operation which is an
offering of life, like that of Jesus, Who was made a poor child and from
there began His mission of redemption...". "The donation received from the Missionary
Childhood has been a help to us in our personal efforts. Indeed, on the
basis of our own poverty, we invited all pupils to concern themselves with
the misery that surrounds us, chiefly that of refugees from the war. We
appealed to the pupils' generosity and they contributed by denying
themselves a soft drink or a snack during break time. In this way we were
able to gather a sizeable amount". "The Holy Childhood organises monthly and weekly meetings by which it infuses the love of the Child Jesus into the hearts of children. They receive ethical, moral, liturgical and cultural formation. They are also given missionary formation and, with the help of photographs, we show them the reality in which youngsters from other parts of the world live. The children pray for them and make small sacrifices. With these sacrifices each group makes a collection and this is sent to the curia together with the money gathered on Missionary Childhood Day". (Bishop Peter M. Chenaparampil, Allepey, INDIA) "Children from other Christian confessions and
sects, from traditional religions and from Islam unite with children of
the Missionary Childhood in order to participate in meetings and classes
of religion. In this way, year after year, non-Christian children become
followers of Jesus. When the vicar general of the archdiocese of Mwanza
made an official visit to Malya, 433 children received Confirmation. 200
of them were from Missionary Childhood. On Christmas Eve, 161 children
received Baptism and First Communion".
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