PORTUGAL: The ‘Three days’ of the Portuguese Pontifical Mission Societies starts in Fatima: training for diocesan directors and the 2024 Missionary Days dedicated to prayer

The training day dedicated to diocesan directors organized by the Portuguese Pontifical Mission Societies (PMS) at Our Lady of Sorrows Retreat House (Casa Dores) in Fatima starts today, 20 September. The training proposal open to all people working in the Missionary Centres of the Diocese will be coordinated by Father Dinh Anh Nhue Nguyen OFMConv, Secretary General of the Pontifical Missionary Union (PMU), and facilitator of the meeting. Father Nguyen will also be the keynote speaker during the Missionary Days scheduled for Saturday 21 and Sunday 22 September, also in Fatima. The Missionary Days will begin with the reception from 9.30 a.m. on 21 September and will end the following day, 22 September, at 1 p.m.; they will take place in the amphitheatre of the Concepcionist Sisters at the Service of the Poor and in the Cova da Iria Shrine, where the Eucharist will be celebrated on Sunday morning, presided over by Msgr Rui Manuel Sousa Valério, Patriarch of Lisbon. There will be two days with prayer at the centre, in response to Pope Francis' call for the Jubilee 2025. The theme is “The prayer of the missionary disciples of Jesus’’. “Prayer is the support of the missionary disciple. Without prayer, Christian life cannot be sustained. However, we do not always know how to pray, or pray as we need to,” Father José Antonio Mendes Rebelo, MCCJ, explained in a note. “In our parishes there are many liturgical, charitable and other activities, certainly worthy, but rarely a school or a prayer group. And, without true prayer, much of what we do loses its soul and meaning.”