“Alleluia! Praise God in his holy place, praise him in the heavenly vault of his power,
praise him for his mighty deeds, praise him for all his greatness.
Praise him with fanfare of trumpet, praise him with harp and lyre,
praise him with tambourines and dancing, praise him with strings and pipes,
praise him with the clamour of cymbals, praise him with triumphant cymbals,
Let everything that breathes praise Yahweh. Alleluia!” (Psalm 150)
Dear Sr Mary Barron OLA, President of SEDOS, and the whole Execute Committee. HAPPY 60th Birthday to SEDOS
Dear Fr. John Paul Herman SVD, Executive Director of SEDOS, greetings and thank you for inviting me to send this congratulatory message on the occasion of the 60th Birthday of SEDOS. I extend my greetings to the members of the SEDOS Team and all those who volunteer to help at and work with SEDOS.
We thank God for the past 60 years in the life of SEDOS since its foundation in the middle of the Second Vatican Council when nine missionary societies began to meet in an informal way in Rome, and since 1964, thanks be to the generosity of the SVD, SEDOS has its Office and Secretariat at the SVD College in Rome.
We thank God for all the achievements and service of SEDOS in promoting reflection on the MISSION. We all thank those who have served SEDOS in the past 60 years and through SEDOS they enriched many missionary and Religious Communities in Rome through the interaction with various Dicasteries, Institutions, Organizations and Universities and in the whole world.
Just at the gate of the Jubilee Year of 2025 in which we are called to reflect on how we are pilgrims of hope, SEDOS continues to bring new ideas and fresh enthusiasm to a tradition of reflection on the mission and service on behalf of the Missionary Church. This dedication, which has spanned six decades, continues to build on past accomplishments.
I personally am a witness of what the Comboni Missionaries in general and I in particular have personally received as a blessing and enrichment through the various activities organised by SEDOS. May God continue to bless through SEDOS, our missionary and synodal church, to continue its presence and service by announcing the Gospel, witnessing to Christ and serving humanity in our world today.
“I dream of a “missionary option”, that is, a missionary impulse capable of transforming everything, so that the Church’s customs, ways of doing things, times and schedules, language and structures can be suitably channelled for the evangelisation of today’s world rather than for her self-preservation. The renewal of structures demanded by pastoral conversion can only be understood in this light: as part of an effort to make them more mission-oriented, to make ordinary pastoral activity on every level more inclusive and open, to inspire in pastoral workers a constant desire to go forth and in this way to elicit a positive response from all those whom Jesus summons to friendship with himself. As John Paul II once said to the Bishops of Oceania: “All renewal in the Church must have mission as its goal if it is not to fall prey to a kind of ecclesial introversion” (EG, n. 27).
