October: missionary month par excellence

Last June, the Pontifical Mission Societies of Spain we presented the memory of our activities and results for the year 2024. Sincerely... we can do it with joy because the data are good, the work is spectacular and the results... very ambitious!

But it is not the merit of this writer, nor of those who are part of this great family that is the Pontifical Mission Societies in Spain, with its seventy diocesan delegations. At least it is not only our merit... it is the merit of all those who, with great generosity, support us, endorse us, encourage us, share their time, their talents... their money!

I have the good fortune to represent, before the Holy See, the missionary work that we Spanish Christians carry out, or rather, the Christians who live our faith in Spain... and everything is congratulations and thanks from the head of the Dicastery for Evangelization, the Pro-prefect Cardinal Tagle. And I am not filled with vanity, but with joy and enthusiasm for the work we have to do.

The fact is that Spain, and those of us who live in this beautiful country, are very missionary and have a great missionary background in our conscience and spirit. Next year, 2026, we will celebrate 100 years of DOMUND in the whole world and, specifically, in Spain, 100 years since the appointment of the first national director of the PMS. And I sincerely believe that this priest, Father Ángel Sagarmínaga, was a great apostle of the missions. And after him have come men like Bishop Francisco Perez or D. Anastasio Gil, all of them among the great apostles of the missions. Anastasio Gil, all of them dedicated to the cause of the mission.

Today in our Spanish Church, the mission occupies a large and important place. May we not let it decline, may we not allow the fuse to be extinguished. Pray for the current national director and for those who come after him, so that we may be worthy successors of those who made of the mission a crusade, and so that Spain, one more year, this year of 2025, may continue to be an example of missionary Church for the whole world.