EXTRAORDINERY MONTH OF MISSION | KAIROS GLOBAL | SEPTEMBER 2019

100 years ago, on 30^th November 1919, Pope Benedict XV issued the Encyclical, Maximum Illud, calling on Catholics to bring the Good News to people all over the world – mission ‘Ad Gentes’ (to the peoples). To commemorate the centenary of this momentous Encyclical, Pope Francis has declared October 2019 to be an Extraordinary Month of Mission (EMM) – a month dedicated to prayer and action, exhorting Catholics to a renewed commitment to Mission Ad Gentes, sharing the Good news of Jesus Christ with people far and wide.

The Holy Father has specified 4 dimensions to live fully the Extraordinary Mission Month – 

1. A personal encounter with Jesus Christ alive in His Church through the Eucharist, the Word of God, personal and communal prayer;

2. Testimony: missionary saints, martyrs and confessors of the faith, as an expression of the Church scattered throughout the world;

3. Missionary formation: biblical, catechetical, spiritual and theological;

4. Missionary charity.

As a ‘Missionary Movement at the Service of the Church’, Pope Francis’ call for the Extraordinary Mission Month 2019 was received with great joy and enthusiasm by the Jesus Youth Movement and its members around the world. Every plan and activity of the movement at this point in time is hence geared towards responding to this call at different levels – from intense personal response to larger, collective responses. The movement is “missionary in nature and has a special focus on evangelizing today’s youth” (Jesus Youth Statutes I.4) and the entire movement sees this as a clarion call – a time to renew and intensify her essential calling through the different charisms.

The International Mission Team of Jesus Youth, coordinated by Adv. Raiju Varghese, through prayer and various discussions have come up with the below plans and proposals to make the month of October a definitive epoch in our journey as a missionary movement.

1. A Time of Renewal and Reawakening - Identifying One’s Mission Ad Gentes

As missionary activity “renews the Church, revitalizes faith and Christian identity, and offers fresh enthusiasm and new incentive”, the Jesus Youth movement sees this call as a great opportunity to reawaken the fervour of evangelization within its members in a new way.

Through a new a set of programmes and dynamics, the movement hopes to catechise its members around the world about the urgency and importance of sharing their faith with others around them, with a specific emphasis to identify their “Mission Ad Gentes” in line with the mandate of Christ and the movement’s theme “Every Jesus Youth is a Missionary”, to reach out and evangelize the nations.

2. A Time of Growth Through Personal Missions - Promotion of Personal Missions

The EMM will be a time to encourage and assist all members of the movement to identify and grow in their personal mission. Specific orientation workshops that help members identify and grow in their personal missions will be held across the movement.

A specific reflection on Mission will be circulated in Jesus Youth households around the world for serious reflection and corresponding action.

3. A Time of Giving - A Month, A Week or A Day to the Mission of the Church

The movement hopes to challenge its members around the world to gift the Church a month, a week or at least a day to spend in Mission.

Jesus Youth has been promoting one-month mission exposure programs among its members since 2010. This involves moving away from their places to a mission centre for a month. The movement will use the opportunity of the Extraordinary Mission Month to encourage maximum number of Jesus Youth members to make a public commitment during Mission Sunday, to embark on a month-long mission exposure during the month of October or immediately afterwards – open to youth as well as families.

For individual youth and youth groups, there would be week-long mission exposure programmes during the month of October and immediately afterwards.

With ‘A Day for Mission’ initiative, every Jesus Youth is encouraged to spend at least one day during the month of October to identify and engage in an activity that directly supports the mission of the Church. This could involve raising funds or materials, spending time with the marginalized, interceding for the mission of the Church or spending time assisting in the efforts of nearby missionary centres.

4. A Time to Recognise and Celebrate Missionaries

As a movement, Jesus Youth has been constantly inspired by the efforts of senior lay missionaries, religious and fellow missionaries within the movement who have set aside their life for the mission of the Church. This Mission Month, the movement feels that recognising these missionaries around the world is important to propagate the idea of mission and to inspire others within the movement and in the Church to respond to the call.

Jesus Youth groups around the world are encouraged to invite, recognise and honour priests, religious and lay missionaries engaged in Mission Ad Gentes. Also each Jesus Youth is strongly encouraged to send letters of gratitude and recognition to those missionaries they know, personally calling onto recognise and encourage missionaries around them.

5. A Time of Adoration & Prayer - 7 Hour Eucharistic Adorations

There would be seven Hour Eucharistic Adoration initiatives in countries where Jesus Youth movement is active – one hour for each continent, plus an hour for the Holy Father and the Church. The first hour will be set aside for Africa, the second for Asia followed by South America, North America, Europe, the Holy Father and the last hour for World Peace.

6. A Time to Showcase the Beauty of Mission

In our predominantly visual culture, the movement hopes to organise Missionary Exhibitions involving Art & Multimedia at Diocesan and Parish levels – to be held in public squares, church campuses and university campuses.

7. A Time to Pray for Mission with the Blessed Mother - Rosaries for Mission

As a movement specially dedicated to the Blessed Mother, Jesus Youth would be promoting the idea of ‘Rosaries for Mission’ in October – the month of special devotion to the Holy Rosary.

A special ‘Mission Rosary Prayer’ in accordance with the Rosary prayers of Venerable Archbishop Fulton J Sheen has been formulated to help the members with this initiative. The movement will encourage members to make rosaries, pray rosaries and give rosaries as a sign of their support for missionaries.

8. A Time to Inspire Young Ones - Mission Focused Curriculum for Sunday Catechesis

Taking into consideration the need to inspire and motivate youth and children to follow the mission of the Church, the movement plans to propose and prepare a specific mission focused curriculum involving multimedia and images, catered for young audiences to be used during the four Sundays of October. The programme will be proposed to the Catechism departments in dioceses. 

9. A Time to Encourage Vocations

The movement sees this month also as a time to recognise and promote religious and lay missionary vocations. Every program of Jesus Youth held during this month would have a special focus on youth Vocations, helping the discernment process through special prayers.

10. A Time to Intensify Family Missions - Missionary Families

The Jesus Youth movement has an active program that sends missionary families to places of need for longer terms ranging from one to five years. These missions are today present in different countries - even in countries where the practice of faith is restricted.

The Extraordinary Mission Month is a time to identify more families, places and mission centres. This is also be a time to help families discern their call, orient as well as equip them for mission. A proposed thought is to anoint them as mission families on Mission Sunday.

11. Being a Sign of the Gospel - Online Presence

Almost every Jesus Youth around the world is active on social media and online platforms in one way or another. They constantly update their status, share links, comment on events and post images and videos - together, they use their personal social media and online presence as a positive influence among their peers. 

In this context, in the month of October, the movement will encourage every Jesus Youth around the world to use their platforms to post status updates, images or videos that are specifically focused on spreading the good news and evangelizing their peer groups online.

This Extraordinary Mission Month is a time of special grace and a time to renew our commitment to the Great Commission that Jesus gave us, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Mt 28:18-20). So “rise, let us be on our way”…..