Buenos Aires, Argentina, Feb 13, 2007 / 10:01 am
Bishop Jose Luis Mollaghan of Rosario is calling on the faithful in Argentina to pray for the 5th General Conference of the Latin American Bishops’ Conference, which will take place in Aparecida, Brazil and will be inaugurated by Pope Benedict XVI.
In noting the theme of the Conference, which is scheduled for 13-31, “Disciples and Missionaries of Jesus Christ, so that our peoples may have life in Him,” Bishop Mollaghan recalled that God desires the salvation of all men and women, and therefore we need missionaries.
“The missionary work of the Church expands every day, because at the dawn of the third millennium, the missions are truly an urgency,” he stressed.
Bishop Mollaghan explained that like St. Therese taught, “the fountain of mission work does not spring up first and foremost out of human efforts, but rather out of the faith and communion of the saints,” and he underscored that mission work is “like the seed, that grows if it falls on fertile ground, and it does not grow first and foremost because of our efforts, but rather because of the action and grace of God.”
Likewise, the Argentinean bishop invited Catholics to participate in mission work “through prayer, the increase of the missionary spirit, the promotion of missionary vocations and the support need to achieve this end,” as such vocations “are a sign of the love of Jesus Christ and of the true growth of the Church in that place.”