23 june, 2009
Archbishop Rino Passigato, Apostolic Nuncio in Portugal, presided, on July 12/13, over the International Pilgrimage on the anniversary of the third apparition of Our Lady at Fatima.
On the vigil of the 12th, he called for the mobilization of Christians to announce the Gospel: “We need to mobilize at all times for the mission around us: in the family, at work, in the public square, that is, in all places where we live our daily life”.
And he went on: “How many times the announcement of the Word of God provokes! Yesterday as well as today... But that is not a reason to resign to the easy silence of those who prefer not to announce. The Lord’s command is clearly to send and to announce”.
During the Mass on the morning of the 13th, he repeated that he had a special intention for his coming to Fatima: to pray for the family: “I came here, in particular, to entrust to the Mother of God, in Whose womb the Word was made flesh, the families of the entire world”.
In his speech, the Pope’s representative in Portugal emphasized that “each man and each woman leaving father and mother to unite in Matrimony and constitute a new family cannot do it thoughtlessly, but rather out of an authentic love, which is not a passing fad, but a definite, absolute, total, mature, responsible and faithful till death giving of oneself”.
Following the annual topic proposed by the Shrine of Fatima to its pilgrims – The pure of heart will see God – the sub-topic for this international pilgrimage was: “Wicked designs come the deep recesses of the heart” (Mk 7, 21).
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