Vatican City: The Catholic Church as a whole is all set to celebrate the ‘Extraordinary Missionary Month’, starting on October 1st, 2019. The Inauguration is scheduled to happen at the St. Peter’s Basilica at 5:15pm (Italian time) by His Highness Pope Francis. The day is chosen specially in order to commemorate the feast days of Missionary heroes St. Francis Xavier and St. Therese of the Child Jesus.
The event will see eight main Missionary groups of Italy like the Component Missionaries, The PIME, The Sovereigns, The Missionaries of Consolata, The Missionaries of the Immaculate amongst others, who would lead prayer sessions and share testimonials to begin with. The entire month would be observed as the Missionary month of the Catholic Church. In the month long activities, a special rosary would be led by Cardinal Fernando Fellino, the head of the Biblical Apostolate in the Vatican City; on 7th of October at the Santa Maggiore Basilica. Following this, October 20th would be observed as the “World Missionary Day”. Pope Francis would celebrate a special solemnised Mass on the said date at St. Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City.
The Goals of the commemoration includes energizing the existing missionary activities and also to lure more and more people into indulging in missionary service. The Pope also intends to multiply the prayer groups in the length and breadth of the world, to assure strong prayers and strength for those involved in the service.
