This letter discusses the theme of Pope Francis' message for World Missionary Day, which is missionary communion and solidarity. It highlights the missionary vocation as a call to serve others through sharing and intercession. The letter invites the sisters to renew their commitment to the missionary mandate of "I entrust them to you" and to say "Here I am, send me!" in response to serving those still awaiting the proclamation of the Gospel, including young people, families in need, and whole populations. It encourages the sisters to contemplate the field the Lord has given them and to work with missionary enthusiasm.

1. Rome, 14 October 2020
Dearest Sisters,
An affectionate greeting full of missionary
enthusiasm and in communion with all the faith
communities that celebrate the Missionary Month.
is the theme chosen by Pope Francis for the 94th
World
Missionary Day (WMD) that will take place on
18 October. The message for WMD was written on the
feast of Pentecost when the whole world, “suddenly taken
by an unexpected and furious tempest” was ‘disconsolately’
immersed in the Covid-19 pandemic. Thus once again, Pope
Francis presents us with a photograph of reality and insists on affirming
that “we cannot go ahead on our own, but only together.”
Even if the call to life, to a missionary vocation is a personal fact and each gives her response
according to the generosity of her own heart, we live it and make it concrete in community, within a
culture or a weaving of cultures, with our feet planted in a specific reality.
According to Pope Francis, “the call to mission, the invitation to go out of ourselves for the
love of God and of our neighbor presents itself as the opportunity for sharing, for service, for
intercession.”
In recent months we have seen in many parts of the world, the witness of doctors, nurses,
health workers, volunteers who have given their life to save the life of others. We can say the same
for many religious and priests.
Faced with this situation, the message for World Missionary Day shakes our being as FMA.
Daily God asks us the question, “Who shall I send?” Who will I send to substitute this or that one?
Who will I send to proclaim the Good News of the Gospel? Who will I send to bear witness to my
love, to “touch and transform hearts, minds, bodies, societies, and cultures in every place and time”?
“God asks for our personal readiness to be sent.” Thus, dearest Sisters, before the loving
invitation of God we cannot be silent or draw back. “Here I am, send me!” ‘Jesus is the Missionary
of the Father’. His Spirit “makes us disciples of Christ and sends us on mission towards the world and
the peoples.”
In this second year of the triennial in preparation for the 150th
anniversary of the foundation
of our Institute, the mission ad gentes makes us think insistently of the mandate “I entrust them to
you”. Still today, there are young people, children, and families, entire populations who await the
proclamation of the Gospel. The mandate “I entrust them to you” received and accepted by Mother
Mazzarello with a generous and open heart, still resounds today in the history of our Institute and is
repeated for each of us.
A multitude of young people await a presence that indicates hope in the future to them,
“I entrust them to you.” Girls and boys in need of care, of education and formation await the
transforming power of the Salesian charism, “I entrust them to you”.
Families in situations of hardship and uncertainty need someone to walk alongside them,
“I entrust them to you”. Whole populations who have not yet heard the name of Jesus have the right
to receive the first proclamation, “I entrust them to you”. Our common Home, Mother Earth,
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2. threatened by an economy that ignores people, kills life, and aborts the dream of a just and fraternal
world ... “I entrust it to you”.
With a serene and restless missionary spirit, willing to accept the “calls of God”, I invite you to
reread Mother Mazzarello's Letter 59, written to Sister Giacinta Olivieri, animator of the Buenos
Aires-Boca house, in January 1881.
This letter was written before the departure of the third missionary expedition (February 3,
1881). In a few lines, Mother Mazzarello expresses her desire to have news of her distant daughters
and encourages them in their apostolic work.
Who was Sister Giacinta Olivieri? Sister Giacinta was born in Ovada (Alessandria) on August
28, 1851. She made her profession in Mornese on December 8, 1877. She left for Argentina with the
second missionary expedition on January 1, 1879. Unfortunately, she left the Institute on March 27,
1883, after about 6 years of religious life.
In the meantime, what interests us and what we want to value is the ‘teaching’ of Mother
Mazzarello. The letter - very short! - opens with a question, which reveals tenderness and concern on
the part of Mother, “Are you dead or alive? You never write even a line to me. All the others give
some sign, either in writing or other means that they are still alive and that they remember my poor,
miserable self, but nothing from you.”
Later, Mother Mazzarello reveals her desire to pay a visit to the sisters, which we know never
happened. Mother writes, “I had hoped to come and visit you, and instead I will have to be content
with sending you this piece of paper, patience, may God’s will be done!”
In this passage and in the following lines, Mother Mazzarello unites the will of God with the
reality of Heaven. She accepts as God's will her inability to visit the sisters, meanwhile focusing on
the goal of every consecrated soul: Paradise. “We will certainly meet again in Heaven. Meanwhile, let
us try to earn a beautiful place there by practicing all the virtues our Holy Rule asks of us. Let us be
exact in observing it.”
And then come the words that are the heart of this letter and that go very well with the
missionary month. “You are really fortunate since you can do so much good and win so many souls
for our dear Jesus. Work, work much in the field the Lord has given you. Never tire, always work with
the sole intention of doing everything for the Lord and He will give you a beautiful treasure of merits
for Heaven.”
Dearest sisters, contemplating the field that the Lord has given us and gives us every day:
“I entrust them to you”, in this new normal we renew our total adherence to His project: “Here I am,
send me!” Certainly many sisters will feel this special call of the Lord for the mission ad gentes. I am
sure that many will say: “Here I am, send me!”
On this journey and in preparation for GC XXIV let us pray together, Mary,
“Star of evangelization and Comforter of the afflicted”, missionary disciple of your Son Jesus, fill
our jars with the wine of wisdom and missionary enthusiasm, so that the dream of God the Father may
be fulfilled in the world: all brothers and sisters of all!
I assure you of my prayers for each of you and, together, we pray for all missionaries ad gentes
of the present and of the future!
A warm embrace, always in sisterly communion!
Councilor for the Missions
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