The Catholic Archdiocese of Lilongwe has urged its lay faithful to wholeheartedly commit themselves to the Mission Month activities, emphasizing the universal nature of the Church and the global need for evangelization.
The call by Auxiliary Bishop Vincent Mwakhwawa of the Archdiocese come prior to the launch of the archdiocesan Mission Month preparations at St. Bernadette Chitula Parish.
Bishop Mwakhwawa highlighted the archdiocese’s role as part of the Universal Church, stressing the importance of preparing for October’s mission activities.
“We want all the faithful to pray for the Church and its activities, and to continue praying for church leaders,” Bishop Mwakhawawa stated.
The Auxiliary Bishop underscored the need to look beyond local congregations and recognize the vast number of people worldwide who have yet to hear the Gospel.
“Our message to them is to know that in the world there are so many people who don’t know the Gospel, so they have to teach one another,” his Lord ship explained.
His lordship also highlighted financial contribution as a key aspect of the Mission Month, encouraging generous offerings and sacrifices, emphasizing that these funds would support other churches globally.
“Though as a church in Lilongwe and Malawi, we receive support from other countries and other communities in the world, we also want to offer our sacrifices, the collected resources will be sent to the Holy Father to be distributed to places needing support for building faith communities and evangelization. They should start collecting their financial resources so that we can put them together as an Archdiocese and send them to the Holy Father,” he said.
PMS Director for the Lilongwe Archdiocese, Fr. Geoffrey Chikapa, outlined the plan for the PMS office and mission team to visit various out-stations prepared by Chitula Parish.
“Basically, we are going there to animate only two things: one, to encourage Christians to pray for all the mission work in the archdiocese and across the dioceses, and secondly, it’s also to mobilize resources, we cannot preach the word of God without financial resources,” he said.
In his remarks, the Laity Council Chairperson in the Archdiocese, Patrick Liphava, mentioned the importance of proper procedures for submitting mission month offerings to the archdiocese, making an assurance that the Laity Council will follow up with parishes to ensure timely submission to the archdiocese.
Meanwhile, Vice Chairperson of Chitula Parish, Samuel Majuta, expressed confidence that they will meet the given target, as the parish is ready to learn more during the month.
Chitula Parish is among the newer parishes in the archdiocese, having opened in 2022.
