(Haiti) – For 20 years, the month of July has been remembered in the parish as the month of the mission. It is an activity that mobilizes all the living forces of the parish, with the objective of responding to this invitation of Jesus in the Gospel according to St. Mark, chapter 16, verse 15: “Go through all and preach. Good news for all creation”.
This mission also responds to the request of Pope Francis who, in his Apostolic Exhortation “Evangelii Gaudium”, invites the Church to go out of her comfort zone to meet people: “I hope that all communities will take steps to implement the necessary means to advance on the path of a pastoral and missionary conversion, which cannot leave things as they are. This is not a “simple administration”; we need all the regions of the earth in a “state of permanent mission” (No. 25). This mission must be carried out by all.
Driven by all this, despite the difficulties caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, the parish of St. Gerard, in its desire to carry out its mission of evangelizing the people of God, has not reached the twentieth edition without difficulty this year.
The theme chosen is “As far as this place the LORD has been our help”. (1Sm 7:12). While we usually organize the mission in the neighborhoods of the Carrefour-Feuilles area, this year we have changed our methodology to avoid exposing the faithful to contamination by a coronavirus.
Throughout the month of July, through the celebration of the Eucharist, we carry out missionary preaching, especially at the end of the week. The various preachers of this twentieth edition invited the Haitian people to give thanks for the marvels that the Lord is accomplishing in the country. According to them, only the powerful hand of the Lord has saved Haiti from this pandemic of Covid-19, because there have not been between one thousand and one thousand five hundred deaths per day, as the scientists expected. The good Lord intervened and avoided the worst! The good Lord heard the prayers of these people and accepted their request. Therefore, of all the evils that the Haitian people suffer, the Good Lord was kind enough to preserve them from Covid-19.
In the closing Mass presided over by Fr. Pétuel GÉRARD, C.Ss.R, the Regional Superior of the Redemptorists in Haiti, he underlined the missionary vocation of all the baptized. He also urged them to become more propagators of the Gospel.
We congratulate and thank all those who made this year’s mission possible. May the Lord, the Master of the harvest, bless the parish and all the missionaries so that, like the first Christians, they may be enthusiastic missionaries who proclaim the good news of salvation in time and at any time!
Fr. Renold Antoine, C.Ss.R., Redemptorist Missionary
