The Collegio del Verbo Divino, Rome celebrated the World Mission Sunday with the particular intention of praying for SVD missions all over the world on 25th October 2020. The main celebrant was Cardinal Luis Antonio Gokim Tagle, Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples. He was welcomed by the Superior General Fr. Paulus Budi Kleden, SVD and the Rector of the Collegio, Fr. Wladyslaw Madziar, SVD and other confreres. Though this celebration was initially planned to be shared with the lay people with whom we render our pastoral service in Rome, due to the pandemic, only the SVD Collegio community participated in this celebration.

At the beginning of the celebration Fr. Budi welcomed the Cardinal Tagle in the name of the Society and assured him of our prayers for his ministry and asked him to pray for our Society. As a sign of welcome, he gave a Bible and a book on the Word of God recollecting our roots from Scripture. Cardinal Tagle in his homily, addressed us saying, “I am among friends” thus he started sharing some thoughts. The foundation of mission is having relationship with God. This relationship blossoms in our lives in diverse manners. The works of mission is to reveal the face of God, Christ. Wherever we go and work, we reveal the person of Christ through our proclamation, fraternal relationships and charitable activities. Reflecting on the Gospel of the day, “Love your God and love your neighbor”, he exhorted us that, as missionaries, loving God’s people is the way we do our mission. We should be “lovers of God” and show this love through relating specially with the poor and marginalized. He encouraged us to let the fire of love be alive! Let the mission be alive by revealing the face of Christ! As Divine Word missionaries, may the Word be spread throughout the world through us as we say, “Here I am Lord, send me!”.

The Eucharistic celebration was filled with diverse cultural flavor – procession of the Word of God and ethnical hymns. The prayer of the faithful was devoted to praying for our four Zones. The Rector gave the vote of thanks to the Cardinal and the celebration ended with a prayer for all the missions and missionaries. After the celebration, Cardinal Tagle greeted the confreres who were waiting in the corridor and exchanged words with all of them and that brought a lot cheer to the community.

Text of the homily of Cardinal Luis Antonio Gokim Tagle [ en / es ]