Pauline Year ends in Dhaka, mission “to the ends of the earth”

From AsiaNews - by William GomesJune 29, 2009

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Fr. Tosolini concelebrates at Mass for the closing of the Pauline Year

Mgr Marino, apostolic nuncio in Dhaka, says that the annunciation of Christ in Bangladesh reaches people through “our witness of unselfish love to others.” Christians represent 3 per cent in a country of 140 million people, 85 per cent Muslim.

“I urge you to meditate on your relationship to Christ, who called you to share in his life, and reflect on how you can share this life with others,” said Mgr Joseph Marino, apostolic nuncio to Bangladesh, in an address to a group of missionaries living in the South Asian country during a seminar on Saint Paul.

About 75 men and women religious took part in the conference, including missionaries from the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions (PIME), Xaverian brothers and sisters of the Order of Our Lady of Missions and guests from other congregations.

PIME Superior General Fr Gianbattista Zanchi, PIME regional Superior General for Bangladesh Fr Francesco Rapaccioli, and Fr Fabrizio Tosolini, a Xaverian missionary in Taiwan (pictured during mass), were among the invited guests called to speak at the meeting.

At the end of the year dedicated to the Apostle of Nations and the start of the Year for Priests, the Church in Bangladesh was invited once again to reflect on the mission as witnessed by Saint Paul.

In a country of 140 million people, where Muslims represent 85 per cent of the population, Christians are but a minority of 3 per cent. For them mission does not simply refer to specific pastoral activities, but is about their everyday life in light of the Gospel.

Father Marino told the 75 people at the seminar that “in the contest of Bangladesh, sharing cannot always occur through words, but must happen, and this is important, through our witness of unselfish love to others.”

During the ad limina visit of the country’s bishops just a few days before the start of the Pauline Year, Benedict XVI told them: “Like the first Christians, you live as a small community among a large non-Christian population. Your presence is a sign that the preaching of the Gospel, which began in Jerusalem and Judea, continues to spread to the ends of the earth in accordance with the universal destination the Lord willed for it.”

For Bangladesh’s Christian community the Pauline Year was an opportunity not only to renew its missionary zeal inside the country but also to look beyond its borders. Fr Francesco Rapaccioli said that priests from Bangladesh could be sent to other Asian countries, a possibility that Fr Fabrizio Tosolini said was a sign that “we are united in Christ, in one and universal Catholic faith.”