CmGlobal

CONGREGAZIONE DELLA MISSIONE
CURIA GENERALIZIA

Via dei Capasso, 30 Tel. (39) 06 661 3061
00164 Roma – Italia Fax (39) 06 666 3831
e-mail: cmcuria@tin.it

30 July 2006
St. Justin De Jacobis

To the members of the Congregation of the Mission

Dear Brothers,

May the grace and peace of Our Lord Jesus Christ fill your hearts now and forever!

With great joy I write to you today as we celebrate the feast of St. Justin De Jacobis, missionary par excellence in Ethiopia and Eritrea. I pray that, through his intercession, God may give us the grace to continue to deepen our missionary spirit in the world where we are called to evangelize especially the most abandoned.

At this time I would like to announce the recipients of the Mission Award for 2006. They are from the Provinces of Ethiopia, North India, Slovakia, Rio de Janeiro and Zaragoza. Below, I give a brief description of these projects, indicating how they show missionary creativity in the evangelization of the poor. Each project recipient will receive US $20,000. Because of the size and nature of the projects submitted, the General Council has once again decided that all the award money will be given to the recipients in 2006, instead of awarding the money over a two-year period, as was described in the application form received by all the Visitors. [...]

Continue Reading

A Vincentian Reflection on Peace

by Robert P. Maloney, C.M.
Superior General

Many eloquent voices are crying out for peace these days. The list is impressive even if I just count the items that cross my desk. On October 31, 2003, the Community of Sant’Egidio wrote inviting me to pray and march for peace on New Year’s Day. The November-December 2003 issue of Religiosi in Italia featured an article entitled, “Peace: Prophecy of the Eternal.” On New Year’s Day itself Pope John Paul II synthesized many of his previous statements in a document called, “An Ever-Timely Commitment: Teaching Peace,” addressed to leaders of the nations, jurists, teachers of the young, and all those tempted to turn to violence. On January 20, his talk to the diplomatic corps focused on “Four Convictions on the Building of Peace.”

Such numerous reflections on peace are surely a good sign, but they are also a bad sign. Continued widespread violence has evoked these cries. As a famous revolutionary in my own country once said: “Gentlemen may cry: ‘Peace, peace,’ but there is no peace!”

I have been asked to write a Vincentian reflection on peace. The topic is very broad, ranging from the quest for interior peace to the promotion of non-violent relationships among the nations. Here in Vincentiana I have already written on several occasions about gentleness as a characteristic Vincentian virtue and a foundational attitude for peacemaking. At the beginning of the Jubilee Year 2000, I also sent a letter to the members of the Congregation of the Mission, reflecting on reconciliation and on preaching and teaching justice. After the events of September 11, 2001, I addressed an Advent letter to all the members of the Vincentian Family, with peace as its theme.

[...]

Continue Reading