AMERICA/URUGUAY – Father Sánchez at the National Missionary Jubilee: “Mission, the vocation of every baptized person”

Montevideo – United to renew the missionary vocation and rediscover the beauty of being missionaries. This was the atmosphere on Saturday, October 18, at the National Missionary Jubilee, organized by the Department of Missions of the Episcopal Conference of Uruguay . This is what Sister Jolanta Plominska, a Polish nun of the Missionaries of St. Peter Claver and head of the National Direction of the Pontifical Mission Societies in Uruguay, told Fides. The day began with a welcome from Cardinal Daniel Sturla, Archbishop of Montevideo, who greeted all those present with words of joy and encouragement, including bishops, priests, nuns, lay people, and numerous young people from various dioceses across the country. Next, Father Fernando Sánchez, national director of the Argentine PMS, presented the key points of Pope Francis’ message for the recently concluded World Mission Day. Father Sánchez emphasized that mission is not an activity reserved for a few, but rather the vocation of every baptized person, stating: “This vocation is born from a personal encounter with Jesus and translates into service, closeness, and joyful witness to the Gospel.” The initiative continued with group work that highlighted the concrete proposal of carrying out joint missions among various congregations and communities, also involving lay people in missionary co-responsibility. “The morning was enriched by a particularly moving moment: the missionary testimonies, true windows open to the life and hope born from the encounter with Jesus,” Sister Plominska recounts. “After an experience in the Amazon, the Velásquez family discovered their own vocation in the mission, which they continue to live today in the simple and fruitful daily life of a Uruguayan parish.
Erik, a young man from the deepest part of Uruguay, shared his presence in the Casabó neighborhood.
Sister María del Rosario, of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Mary, shared the richness of her experience in Honduras, while seminarian Luis spoke of his experience among the indigenous peoples of the Venezuelan Amazon, a mission of closeness and profound listening, in which the Gospel is proclaimed more through presence than through words”. As part of the National Missionary Jubilee program, the Missionary Fair was also held, a colorful meeting place where it was possible to learn about the variety of missionary charisms, works, and presences active in Uruguay. The day concluded with the Eucharistic celebration in the parish of Cordón, along with the missionary mandate, a sign of the Church’s outreach to all the geographical and existential peripheries of the country and the entire world. “It was a true missionary celebration, an experience of communion and hope that renewed in all of us the desire to be missionaries of hope among peoples, bringing the joy of the Gospel wherever life calls and the Spirit sends us,” concludes Sister Jolanta Plominska.

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