VATICAN CITY, MAY 22, 1999 (VIS) - This evening, the vigil of Pentecost, the Pope presided at a Eucharistic celebration in St. Peter's Square to mark the closing of the Citizens' Mission of Rome.
John Paul II thanked all the "missionaries, priests, religious and, above all, lay people who have been the first beneficiaries of the grace of the Mission. The generous commitment with which you have prepared yourselves and carried the Gospel into homes and into the urban environment has opened new paths for evangelization."
The Holy Father exhorted priests to be "judicious guides and attentive teachers of faith in the community," asked religious to continue to support the Mission through prayer and entreated lay people to "give life to a great and permanent missionary movement in the city and in all its environments." He also recalled the contribution made to the Citizens' Mission by the sick with the offer of their suffering and by cloistered nuns through their constant prayer.
The Pope proposed that a meeting take place that may serve to draw "the guide lines for a permanent commitment to missionary evangelization," in order that the seed sown in the three years of the Mission "not be lost" but produce fruit. "To be a missionary Church: This is the great challenge in the coming years for Rome and for the whole world."
He exclaimed: "The Gospel that Jesus entrusted to us is the Gospel of peace. How can we keep it to ourselves, especially at this moment when oppression and war are sowing destruction and death in the neighboring region of the Balkans? The Spirit urges us to proclaim and to work for peace in justice and reconciliation. It is in this sense that I would like, in the forthcoming feast of Corpus Christi, a single choral invocation for peace to arise from the Church of Rome. I invite everyone ... to join me" in the Mass and Eucharistic procession of June 3 "to entreat together the gift of peace in the Balkans."
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