PONTIFICIUM OPUS A SANCTA INFANTIA

THE MISSIONARY COOPERATION 
OF CHILDREN IN MISSIONARY CHILDHOOD

         This Society promotes children's missionary cooperation in three ways:

• Spiritual cooperation: through the offering of their Christian life (witness), continuous prayer for the mission and offering their sacrifices by joining them to Jesus' for the salvation of children and the world;
  

• Material cooperation: through the economic "missionary offering" and other material goods;
  

• Cooperation through missionary services: God needs our collaboration; he needs us as missionaries. Moreover, he needs us to help him promote missionary vocations.

         In order to promote and channel this cooperation, the universal Church has set down that "in taking local possibilities into consideration, the Society organizes a Universal Day for Children yearly. On that occasion, it should direct the children's attention to the spiritual and material needs of children throughout the world and encourage them to rush to their aid through their prayers, sacrifices, offerings and by helping them to discover the countenance of Jesus Christ" (PMS Statutes, 20).

         Also through economic cooperation the children propose to share their faith and to help other children become greater friends of Jesus.

         Over more than 150 years, without any discrimination of race, culture or religion, the children of Missionary Childhood, by sharing their bread and faith, have given aid to millions of children for their food, clothing and health, to protect their lives, for scholastic education and, above all, for their Christian and missionary education. The children's offerings are used each year, through "ordinary" and "extraordinary" subsides, to aid some 4,000 projects for the neediest children of the world.