209. Listen and Welcome
Those words sum up the mission of a Missionary, Listen and Welcome.
The Prodigal Son was the parable in the Gospel at the Missionary Mass held by a group of volunteers from the Diocese of Vittorio Veneto, in the church of The Assumption of Our Lady in Fregona, last night. The fact that the father welcomes his estranged son with great festivity provokes the disapproval of the conventional son who had remained unerring at his father’s side.
This parable if applied to present daily life is like the Christians, the Jews, the Muslims, the Hindus, the atheists become incarnate in the figure of the conventional son who when someone not of their nomination come near the reaction is one of rejection. 
That is quite the opposite of what the mission of a Missionary consists, for a Missionary is there to listen and welcome, to bring out the fatted calf and feast when someone, who is not one of them, approaches.
How many of us "bring out the fatted calf" when we meet an individual who is “not one of us?”
Related articles:
Comments