Domund 2024 in Venezuela: An opportunity to help the country’s missionaries

Within the framework of the campaign Missionary Octoberthe Pontifical Mission Societies of Venezuela (PMO) promote World Mission Sunday (Domund) on October 20, with the aim of addressing “the great needs” of missionaries in the most remote regions of the country.

Domund is the international day on which the entire Church prays for its missionaries and organizes a fundraising campaign to support them.

Father Ricardo Guillén, national director of the PMS in Venezuela, indicated to ACI Prensa that the Domund offers the opportunity to the local Church to “connect with the universality of humanity and the Church” and to tune in to the action of God through through the work of missionaries in many vulnerable locations.

“In Venezuela, every year the enthusiasm around the experience and celebration of Domund in parishes and Catholic schools grows. It is a grace that the Lord grants us in the midst of the difficulties and challenges that the country faces,” said the priest.

“Being able to pray for others and collaborate with their material needs helps our Christian communities not to look only at themselves to lament their own sorrows, but on the contrary, to understand that we are not so poor, nor are our problems “so great that we cannot offer something of who we are and have, so that others can experience that they are not alone in their struggles to dignify their lives and live faith in Jesus Christ,” he added.

In Caracas, the central Mass on Sunday will be celebrated in the Holy Metropolitan Cathedral Church of Santa Ana at 11:30 am presided over by the Archbishop of Caracas, Mons. Raúl Biord Castillo.

Father Guillén is convinced that “we need and owe each other.” Hence the motto of the Domund 2024 day is Go invite everyone to the banquetan exhortation to include everyone and “overcome the polarization we experience.”

For the national director of the PMS, “living and celebrating the Domund today in Venezuela entails a commitment for the Church to promote the culture of encounter.”

More pastoral support for Venezuelan mission territories

The apostolic vicariates in Venezuela, some of enormous extension and their localities very far from the big cities, are in urgent need of missionaries “of great temper and apostolic ardour” who take up the work of those first religious congregations that have left today. of the country for various reasons.

The needs of its inhabitants, especially indigenous peoples, are many on a spiritual level. Father Guillén assures that the PMS are evaluating today “new modes of missionary presence” that allow them to accompany these communities in an efficient and close manner.

However, the priest does not ignore the material needs of these very vulnerable people. “One of the biggest shortcomings is the limited access to quality education that children and young people have,” he said.

“The missionaries do everything in their power to continue evangelizing through education, which is an arduous task, due to the great distances they have to travel along rivers and roads, the high cost of food and school dropouts due to lack of resources. Added to this are the deficiencies in the health system and the shortage of medicines,” added the national director of the OMP.

Finally, Father Guillén believes that the rest of Venezuela can learn a lot from these territories, sharing their experience of “warmth and capacity to welcome” in the midst of their communities.

“The simplicity of treatment, the ability to welcome those who visit them by offering the little they have, are gestures that express the nobility of our people always willing to share,” he stated.

“This experience of fraternity that overcomes the anonymity of the parishes of the big cities, can be an instructive testimony for the rest of the country,” concluded the priest, inviting all Venezuelans to be generous on October 20.