The first edition of the Italy’s National Mission Festival, entitled Mission Is Possible, organized by the Conference of Italian Missionary Institutes (CIMI), the Italian Bishops Conference (CEI) through the Missio Foundation, and the diocese of Brescia, will be held in Brescia from 12-15 October 2017. It is hoped that thousands of people will participate in this huge “public square event, which wants to relaunch in Italy the fascination of the mission ad gentes. The Festival will feature four days of conferences, concerts, exhibitions, street shows and moments of reflection in a festive climate.
One of the distinctive features of the Festival will be the widespread hospitality offered by religious houses, oratories and families of the Brescia diocese to participants looking for lodgings during those days. Special guests at the event will be Cardinals Tagle, Simoni and Filoni, Father Federico Lombardi, Alejandro Solalinde, Rosemary Nyirumbe, Blessing Okoedion and Gael Giraud.
Artistic director Gerolamo Fazzini, journalist and writer, presents the motives behind the singular initiative in this way: “It will reveal how the mission experience also changes the missionary. Meeting other peoples and cultures in a spirit of gratuity enriches the missionary and the community and the person returns home richer. Obviously, mission involves disadvantages (although these are less than in the past) such as the effort needed to adapt, unfamiliarity with the language and being considered ‘strangers.’ But the story of those who take part in the mission experience can be fascinating because it changes the person for the better in terms of human and spiritual wealth. As Pope Francis says, to go forth on mission is to discover that God anticipated the arrival of the missionary. One does not set out with packages containing the Gospel, thinking that he/she is headed for a desert. No. In some mysterious way, the spirit of God is already present in other cultures and religions. A missionary is sent out by the Church to make the name of God and Jesus Christ more explicit. The missionary does not go forth with an attitude that says: ‘You have nothing; we have everything.’ Instead, he/she should have the attitude of one who wants to discover the seeds of the Word in a specific context, convinced that God is already present in all peoples and cultures.”