Children Helping Children

Every day more adults and young people are waking up from the lethargy of indifference and comfort that reigned in our nation years ago. Thousands of children, who have shown great maturity, have learned that solidarity is vital to getting ahead.

One of the initiatives that has gained momentum in our country in recent years is the Missionary Childhood, which this year marks almost 180 years since its founding. Throughout its history, the Venezuelan Church has stood beside those most in need, providing great spiritual, educational and social help through thousands of initiatives in every corner of the country.

The Missionary Childhood is another wonderful service of the Catholic Church. It was founded in 1843 by the French bishop Charles de Forbin-Janson, moved by the letters and news he received from missionaries, above all in China, describing the wretched fate of children, especially girls, abandoned by their parents. So he began to ask for help, and together with Pauline Jaricot he conceived of a work in which Christian children would help the children of mission countries with their prayers and their money. When Bishop Forbin-Janson died in 1844, the “Holy Childhood,” today the “Missionary Childhood,” brought together children from sixty-five dioceses in Europe, and it soon spread to the Americas, Oceania, Asia and Africa. Today it is present in more than 117 countries, with millions of “little missionaries” in parishes, schools and movements on five continents. More than twenty million children around the world benefit from its schools, orphanages and clinics.

Among the main aims of the Missionary Childhood are: first, to awaken and strengthen in children faith in Jesus, our Divine Savior; to help awaken children’s universal missionary awareness, so that “children help children” with their prayers, sacrifices and material contributions; to encourage children to share their faith and material means with children in needier regions and Churches; and to work with parents, catechists and teachers in children’s universal missionary formation and education. Among the values the Missionary Childhood fosters: it helps in the integral education of children; it lets children experience generosity and solidarity; it develops their capacity for affection by teaching them to care for others; it helps children experience effort and self-improvement; and it introduces children to the discovery that they are children of God and brothers and sisters of all people, so that they can later live as true Christians.

The Missionary Childhood has been valued and effectively embraced in the dioceses and apostolic vicariates of Venezuela. Teams are at work all over the country, in many schools, parishes, poor neighborhoods, villages and rural mission centers. The latter are a beautiful and effective presence of the Church, which has admirably made faith and human and Christian values flourish among the humblest people of our countryside.

The Christian solidarity and generous contributions of our children have also been felt among the indigenous children of our Venezuelan peoples, in their schools, medical clinics and other basic needs. This is unquestionably praiseworthy work that deserves to be spread through the media, so that we can see the positive things happening in our country and so that those who wish to join this initiative can do so by asking at their nearest parish.

In 2007, addressing a group of children from the Missionary Childhood, Benedict XVI said: “…I see that you are little collaborators in the service the Pope renders to the Church and to the world: you support me with your prayer and also with your commitment to spreading the Gospel. There are many children who do not yet know Jesus. And, unfortunately, there are many others who lack what they need to live: food, health care, education; many lack peace and serenity… Friendship with Jesus is such a beautiful gift that it cannot be kept to oneself. Whoever receives this gift feels the need to pass it on to others; and in this way the gift, when shared, does not diminish but multiplies. Keep it up. You are growing, and soon you will be teenagers and young people: do not lose the missionary spirit you have. Always keep your faith clear and genuine. Dear little friends, I entrust you to the protection of the Virgin. I pray for you, for your parents and your brothers and sisters. I pray for your missionary groups and your educators, and to all of you I wholeheartedly impart the apostolic blessing.”

The Missionary Childhood in Venezuela is one more sign of the hope that exists in our beloved Homeland. That work, done “silently and tirelessly,” has borne fruit and will bear still more. Keep going with that beautiful mission, and always count on our help and our prayers.