Every year in October, the Catholic Church encourages her faithful to pray the rosary. It is also the Mission month, whereby the lay faithful are asked to carry out their baptismal obligations. In Malawi, the Bishop of the diocese of Mangochi, who is also the Vice Chairperson of Episcopal Conference of Malawi (ECM), Rt. Rev. Montfort Stima, opened this Mission month on 1st October 2022 with the Eucharistic celebration. This opening ceremony took place at Mofolo Woyera parish in the same diocese. It was a ceremony organized by the Pontifical Mission Societies (PMS) which is an organization of four different societies which have the singular objectives of developing the Church by supporting missions and missionaries in the work of evangelization.
In his remarks, the bishop called upon all Catholic Christians to pray for missionary activities in the Church. They should also pray for God’s mercy on the current situation in the country in matters like economy, politics and social issues. He also encouraged the lay faithful and all people of good will to participate in the activities which will take place in this mission month. This can be through praying for the work of evangelization, preaching the Good News to the whole world and contributing their money to the work of evangelization. He said that by doing this, they help in the transformation of our societies and Malawi at large.
In his remarks, the National Director for Pontifical Mission Societies (PMS) Rev. Fr. Vincent Mwakhwawa, said that the month of October is meaningful to the Catholic Church as it is the time to remind each other about the role and obligation of the Church in the society. He said that selfishness among politicians has greatly affected lives of the poor Malawians and called upon every baptized person in the Catholic Church and all people of good will, to be the witnesses of the Good News, by reaching out in different ways to those people that have not yet heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ. “We have got people in different arenas who are blessed with education, employment, others run different businesses and still more, others are skilled in many helpful areas. Such people should use their blessedness without negligence in the work of evangelization,” said Fr. Mwakhwawa.
Every year, the Catholic Church in the whole world celebrates the Mission Month October and, this year, the Church has got additional celebration of four anniversaries as follows: 400 years of the establishment of the Congregation for the Propaganda Fide (Propagation of faith) which was established in 1622; 200 years of the foundation of the Missionary Society for the Propagation of faith by Pauline Marie Jaricot in 1822; 100 years of the foundation of Pontifical Mission Societies (PMS) by Pope Pius XI in 1922 and finally, 150 years of the birth of Blessed Paulo Manna who was born in 1872 and who also founded the Pontifical Missionary Union (PMU). The celebration of the Mission month will reach at a climax on 23rd October 2022 which will be on Mission Sunday.