Go to the Peripheries, sixth video of Father Tomaž Mavrič

Ten years ago, the bishops of Latin America met at the V General Conference of the Episcopate in the city of Aparecida, Brazil. Among the bishops was the then Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, who led the commission that drafted a document which, in recent years, has helped the pastoral orientation of the Church in Latin America. Aparecida invited us to “set out from our isolated minds and throw ourselves with courage and confidence (parrhesia) into the mission of the entire Church” (A. 363).

Pope Francis has asked the Church insistently to go to the mission, to the existential peripheries of the world, not to remain stuck looking at itself. The Pope warns, “When the Church does not leave itself to evangelize, it becomes self-referential and then becomes sick.”

But where are these peripheries? “They are not only geographical peripheries, but also existential peripheries: those of the mystery of sin, those of pain, injustice, ignorance and religious abstention, those of thought, those of all misery.” Those peripheries have a history, are located in a geographical place, have a life, a concrete face.

The above-cited document of Aparecida tells us of concrete faces that appear every day: “Globalization is causing the emergence of new faces of the poor in our peoples. With special attention …, we focus our attention on the faces of the new excluded: migrants, victims of violence, displaced people and refugees, victims of human trafficking and kidnappings, the disappeared, people sick with HIV and endemic diseases, drug addicts, adults, boys and girls who are victims of prostitution, pornography and violence or of child labor, abused women, victims of exclusion and traffic for sexual exploitation, differently-abled people, large groups of unemployed men and women, those excluded by technological illiteracy, street people in large cities, the indigenous and Afro-Americans, landless peasants and miners” (A. 402).

Saint Vincent de Paul also invited us to turn the medal, to discover in the faces of the poor the true face of Jesus Christ.

May the invitation made to us by Father Tomaž Mavrič, in this sixth video-message for the celebration of the 400^th anniversary of the birth of the charism, encourage and revive the desire to go out of ourselves and take the road toward those who need us, our lords and masters.

See the earlier videos…

• Vincent’s hat
• Vincent’s sandals of charity
• Wrap yourself in Vincent’s cape
• Globalization of Charity
•  The Call

We will continue to distribute in eight languages: Spanish, English, French, Portuguese, Slovenian, Slovak, Italian, and Polish, but we also want to disseminate in more local languages. You can follow on the YouTube channel, Facebook, and Twitter. Here are the link to the videos in the other languages.

YouTube uploads 2nd series