Bolivia - "We are not made to be sad, but to be happy": V American Missionary Congress

13 July 2018

(ANS - Santa Cruz) - The fifth American Missionary Congress (V CAM) began on July 10th with the presence of about three thousand people from all over the world. The Salesians of Bolivia are part of the team that welcomes the missionaries who have reached the heights of Bolivia to reflect on a theme that never goes out of fashion: "America on a mission, the Gospel is joy."

Sister Cilenia Rojas, General Coordinator of V CAM, expressed her own joy at the event and stated that "when people get involved, they then give consistency to the event, which stops being just an activity for meeting, but it becomes, instead, a new way of rethinking how we can renew ourselves in the mission."

The V Congress is animated from the morning with prayer and presentations that seek to be enlightening, suggestive and provocative for the work to follow. Many missionary testimonies then emerge in the working groups, experiences that allow people to broaden their visions, and all this enriches the event's participants.

"May our welcoming the missionaries of all America help us, as Salesians and as a Province, to strengthen our missionary commitment there where we find ourselves and, above all, in missionary work," said Fr Javier Ortiz, Provincial of the Salesian Province of the Bolivia.

V CAM is a great missionary event, a time of grace to live a new Pentecost, where a missiological reflection on the life and situation of the Church in the American continent is promoted, but which also tries to look to the future to plan and develop pastoral commitments and actions in a missionary key and to help the local Churches in their pastoral conversion.

The presentations of last July 11th took place at the "Don Bosco Coliseum" and saw Msgr. Guido Charbonnea, Bishop of Choluteca, in Honduras, speaking of the attitude and the prophetic tone of the missionary who lives the joy of the Gospel. "In our world full of bad news, the proclamation of the Gospel is the joyous announcement of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And it is also the power of God for the salvation of all believers," he explained, adding, "We are not meant to be sad, but to be happy."

The V CAM ends tomorrow, Saturday, July 14, with a novelty: the parishes and the families of Santa Cruz will welcome the participants and share the missionary experience.

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