CONCLUSION

37. A hope for the mission of the third millennium. The directives contained in this Guide are proposed as a general model, to serve as an ideal and be adapted where necessary.

The catechists are held in great esteem for their participation in missionary activities and for their characteristics which are rarely found in the ecclesial communities outside the mission.

Their number continues to grow and in recent years has been between 250,000 and 350,000. For many missionaries they have been absolutely indispensable, serving as their close assistants and at times interpreters. They have often been able to keep the faith of a community alive during trying periods, and their families have given priestly and religious vocations. We cannot but have the greatest respect for these "fraternal animators of young communities", and feel that we should place the highest ideals before them, while recognizing that, because of objective difficulties or personal limitations, ideals are not always attained.

By way of conclusion, we may quote the words of Pope John Paul II to the catechists of Angola during his visit to that country: "So many times it has fallen to you to strengthen and build up the young Christian communities, and even to found new ones through the first proclamation of the gospel. If missionaries could not be there for this first proclamation or had to leave before it could be followed up, it was you, the catechists, who instructed the catechumens, prepared people for the sacraments, taught the faith and were leaders of the Christian community (...). Give thanks to the Lord for the gift of your vocation, through which Christ has called you from among other men and women to be instruments of his salvation. Respond with generosity to your vocation and your names will be written in heaven (cf. Lk 10:20)".

The CEP hopes that, with God's help and that of the Virgin Mary, this Guide will give new impulse to the promotion of catechists, so that their generous contribution will continue to bear fruit for the Church's mission in the third millennium.

The supreme Pontiff John Paul II, during the course of the Audience granted to the undersigned cardinal Prefect on the 16th June 1993, approved the present Guide for Catechists and gave consent to its publication.

Rome, from the Office of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples,3rd December 1993, Feast of Saint Francis Xavier.

Jozef Card. Tomko, Prefect

Giuseppe Uhac, Arch. tit. of Tharros, Secretary