Dear and most reverend Father, we have come just now from Porto San Giorgio, from the tent that you honored, made holy, with your presence two years ago.
      We have been there, one thousand, four hundred families, for a week, preparing ourselves in a retreat of conversion. The families who were sent two years ago to the most difficult zones of Latin America were present. They were sent to the pueblos jovenes, the shanty towns of Guayaquil in Ecuador, and to many other places... Some were sent too to the fringes of Europe, such as Hamburg or to neighborhoods of Amsterdam in Holland, to New York (the Bronx), and together we have seen something of their experience. They have all come with eyes full of light, of love, of the tenderness of Our Lord Jesus Christ who has been with us in the midst of very great suffering and has helped us very much.
       They have all decided to return. They have told us many striking facts and of how God has tested and prepared them for the mission. In these years of `incarnation' many went to these countries, to Japan for example, without knowing the language, and we have done this deliberately because we think that it is better to go being the last ones (someone who doesn't know the language is poor). And in fact, this has been very effective because the people round about gave things to these families, came to their assistance, gave them help, and this has made their mission easier, the mission to make present the immense mystery of the Holy Family of Nazareth. In many places these families have begun to give catechizes. They have been able to announce Jesus Christ and little Christian communities have been formed, with pagans. In China - Taiwan - a small community of eleven people including four catechumens was born in a completely pagan village.
       Now we have very many requests from many Bishops, including Bishops who had already asked for families and after two or three years (some have already been on the mission for three or four years) have seen the fruits, especially in Latin America in the face of the `sects.'
These families went to zones where there are no parish priests, where, because of the lack of clergy, there are no churches.
We have many requests, so many that we have had to make a selection. So we asked the first communities in Spain where the families have an adequate preparation with more than fourteen years in the Way and many, many families offered themselves. It is something surprising, with their children, ready to go where the Church thinks good. There where the family is destroyed they are ready to be the real presence of a Christian family and we are surprised by this generosity of theirs because they know that they are going, many of them, to martyrdom, to very difficult situations. We have four hundred new families who offered themselves. We met together with those who were already in mission and with other itinerants - a thousand people altogether.
       The seminarians of the `Redemptoris Mater' of Rome were also present and it was a marvelous preparation for them to hear these families, the difficulties...
       Then, until last night, until almost three o'clock this morning, all of yesterday was taken up by looking at, evaluating every `request'. To be able to send the families we asked for an official letter from each Bishop and that the Bishop also take some responsibility for helping them with the house etc.
       At the end we chose one hundred families. Here are the brothers and sisters who have already been given a destination, who are ready to leave. Six families will go to Russia, to Moscow; four to Bielorussia; two to Georgia; two to Yugoslavia; six new families to Germany (to continue the marvelous work that these families are doing in Holland, asked for by the Bishop); two to England; two to France. Then in the United States the Bishops have asked for nineteen families, for the city outskirts, above all to begin work with the blacks, where the Catholic Church is finding itself in difficulties. For example, the Cardinal of Washington, the bishops of Dallas, of St. Antonio, of Texas etc. have made requests. Then in Central America and Latin America, for example, for Chile, for Colombia (two families); another family for Ecuador, two for Venezuela; three in Mexico. In Asia: ten families for Japan; another five for nationalist China. In Africa, four for Zambia; four for Cameroon; then Ethiopia, Ivory Coast, Australia etc. A total of one hundred and four families with a total of four hundred and nine children, and all young, some not so young. When these families have children of fifteen, sixteen years of age, we asked them for their opinion, if they were ready to go with their parents. In this we have seen an enormous generosity and how these young people love their parents... Good, about the mission: we have listened to the families who have come back. They said that the first evangelizers have been their children (in Japan, China, Holland) in their colleges, schools; it was beautiful with the mothers. We could say that their children are the spearhead of the `New Evangelization' by families. The children also give witness to their friends, bringing their friends... for example, the families in Japan are always finding their homes invaded by Japanese children, friends of their children. And these children know the language already for they learn it very quickly. Through the children the families have got to know other Japanese families. What helps the evangelization of these families is that none of them are Christian, they are all pagans which makes them very interested in, very struck by this way of `living the family', seeing the family table like an altar where the father transmits, `passes on', the faith to the children and where the marriage bed is also an altar where new children are given life. A new culture appears, that is also such a profound and marvelous reality that we are surprised. There, Father, I don't want to go on any longer but only to say that we have been very struck by the fact that so many wanted to go. Out of these four hundred families only one hundred can leave but all of them wanted to go. And I said to them, `But do you realize what you are doing: going to very poor, very difficult places?' But we were all moved by an ardour, by the desire for martyrdom, by a supernatural `force' that was present in our midst...
(Translated from the Italian edition of L'Osservatore Romano, 4 January 1991, with additional material from a tape recording.)

SPEECH OF THE HOLY FATHER

       I cannot but underline, with deep joy, that your concern for evangelization urges you above all towards families. In this age, is it not that the family perhaps needs to be evangelized again so that it can rediscover its role as the primary cell of the Christian community, the domestic church, within which it is possible to live the primal experience of the meeting with God? How deeply can be felt the current social situation of the crisis of the family! It is not easy to think that there will be a better future if the home does go back to being the privileged place for the welcoming of life and for the growth of the person: a school of human wisdom and of spiritual formation.
       With a joyful soul I greet the many families among you who are already in mission in the most dechristianized parts of the planet; I greet also the couples who are preparing to leave. Yes, families evangelize families!
       May the Lord make you into his instruments everywhere; may his grace always accompany you.
       I gladly hand over the cross to those who are called to be itinerants in the service of the Gospel, in other countries. Entrust yourselves to God and, resisting every difficulty, make yourselves `ambassadors for Christ, ... as though God were appealing through us.' (2 Cor 5:19)
       Live in cordial obedience and filial communion with the Pastors for you are members of a living body: the Church. It is they who invite and welcome you. You must show docility towards and confidence in them. It is through their directives that the will of the Lord is made known to you in your particular mission.
       The task which awaits you - the New Evangelization - asks you to present with new enthusiasm and renewed methods the eternal and immutable content of the patrimony of our Christian faith. As you know very well, it is not only about transmitting a doctrine but it is to meet the Savior in a deep and personal way.
       I invoke Mary, the Mother of the redeemer, so that she may help you in this way. To her, Star of the New Evangelization, I entrust each of you, your communities and all those whom you will meet.
       While, in the name of the Lord, I exhort you to set off with courage and to be ardent witnesses of the Gospel everywhere, I bless you from my heart.

       The Holy Father added spontaneously:
       Well, what I have said was a reply to your beautiful and introduction that is realistic in a way that is Christian and neocatechumenal. But introductions must always have a follow-up. Now we have this follow-up here in the Paul VI hall, but then there will be more follow-up in your journeys as itinerant families, families that carry out an in-depth evangelization in the Neocatechumenate, that embraces all of human life, embraces all the life of the family that evangelizes or that is evangelized.
       And so I wish you a good journey: from the itinerant Pope to the itinerants!