POPE’S OCTOBER PRAYER INTENTION: ‘MAY ALL CHRISTIANS BE MISSIONARY DISCIPLES’

I’m working on sorting out all of my photos from the past month and I expect many of you know that is no small task. Add to that the notice from Gmail that my storage is above 90% and needs to be cleaned or I can no longer send or receive emails! I actually spent about two hours trying to clean out mail boxes as well as my immense photo archive, transferring many thousands of pictures to my external hard drive. All in a day’s work!

More cleaning tomorrow but for now, some papal news…..

POPE’S OCTOBER PRAYER INTENTION: ‘MAY ALL CHRISTIANS BE MISSIONARY DISCIPLES’

Pope Francis released his prayer intention for the month of October, calling on everyone to pray that all Christians might be missionary disciples and open to the demands of the Church’s evangelizing mission.

By Devin Watkins (vaticannews)

“Jesus asks us all, and you as well, to be missionary disciples. Are you ready?”

Pope Francis opened The Pope Video—containing his prayer intention for the month of October—with that invitation to all Christians.

The Pope said we are all invited to be open to Jesus’ call and to live united to Him in the mundane events of our daily lives.

“Work, meeting other people, our daily duties, and the chance events of each day”: These are the opportunities we have to allow ourselves to be “guided by the Holy Spirit,” said the Pope.

He said other people easily take notice when our every action is motivated by Christ.

“And your testimony of life will inspire admiration, and admiration inspires others to ask themselves, ‘How is it possible for this person to be this way?’ ‘What is the source of the love with which this person treats everyone —the kindness and good humor?’”

Availability for the mission
Pope Francis also recalled that the mission is evangelization and not proselytism.

“The mission is based on an encounter between people, on the testimony of men and women who say, ‘I know Jesus, and I’d like you to know Him too’,” he said.

The Pope then urged all baptized Christians to be open to the demands of the Gospel.

“Let us pray that every baptized person may be engaged in evangelization, available to the mission, by being witnesses of a life that has the flavour of the Gospel,” he said.

Synodal and missionary Church
A press release accompanying The Pope Video, which is prepared by the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network, noted that the October intention comes during the same month in which the synodal process begins and World Mission Day is celebrated.

The Synod process kicks off on 10 October, and will launch a call for all Catholics to walk together as the “pilgrim and missionary people of God.”

According to the Secretary General of the Synod of Bishops, Cardinal Mario Grech, a “synodal Church cannot be other than a missionary Church, because the mission necessarily starts with the dynamism of mutual listening.”

Discernment of the Spirit
Another aspect of Pope Francis’ prayer intention for October is the invitation to “discern and recognize how the Spirit of the Lord is calling us to face the challenges facing humanity and the mission of the Church.”

Fr. Frederic Fornos, SJ, International Director of the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network, said the Pope is inviting all Christians to participate in that discernment process by rooting our actions in prayer.

Click here for video of Pope Francis’ message (with subtitles in English): Pope’s October prayer intention: ‘May all Christians be missionary disciples’ – Vatican News

 

POPE’S OCTOBER PRAYER INTENTION: FOR A MISSIONARY “SPRING” IN THE CHURCH

At 6.00 pm this evening in St. Peter’s Basilica, Pope Francis will preside at Vespers for the beginning of the missionary month that is traditionally October. The celebration will be introduced by a missionary Vigil and listening to testimonies from the missionary world starting at 5.15 pm.

Starting today, the Church this month celebrates an “Extraordinary Missionary Month,” that was announced by the Pope himself at the Angelus of October 22, 2017 with these words: “It is my intention to promote an Extraordinary Missionary Month in October 2019, in order to nourish the ardor of the evangelizing activity of the Church ad gentes. On the day of the liturgical memorial of St. John Paul II, the missionary Pope, we entrust to his intercession the mission of the Church in the world.”

POPE’S OCTOBER PRAYER INTENTION: FOR A MISSIONARY “SPRING” IN THE CHURCH

Pope Francis released a video message accompanying his prayer intention for October, which is that the breath of the Holy Spirit engender a new missionary spring in the Church.

(vaticannews)

In his prayer intention for the month of October 2019, Pope Francis invites us to pray that, “politicians, scientists and economists work together to protect the world’s seas and oceans.”

It has become the custom of Pope Francis to release a video message detailing his prayer intention for each month.

The full text of his intention follows:

Today, a new impulse to the Church’s missionary activity is needed to face the challenge of proclaiming Jesus and his death and resurrection. Reaching the peripheries – the human, cultural, and religious settings still foreign to the Gospel: this is what we call the “missio ad gentes”. We must also remember that the heart of the Church’s mission is prayer. In this Extraordinary Missionary Month, let us pray that the Holy Spirit may engender a new missionary “spring” for all those baptized and sent by Christ’s Church,

The Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network of the Apostleship of Prayer developed “The Pope Video” initiative to assist in the worldwide dissemination of monthly intentions of the Holy Father in relation to the challenges facing humanity.

TO SEE THE VIDEO: https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2019-10/pope-prayer-intention-october-missionary-month.html