Philippe Ponsignon climbed the highest mountain in Mexico. While doing so he thanked God for creation, and offered it for the Holy Week Missions that were coming up soon, and now have become online missions, due to the COVID-19 Coronavirus pandemic.
Three years ago, Fr. Pablo González, LC, invited Philippe Ponsignon, a French national living in the city of Querétaro, Mexico, to Holy Week Missions. In 2018, he went on Holy Week Missions (Megamissions) with his friends and family. They went to the community of Tolimán in the state of Querétaro.
Phillippe shared his testimony of climbing the Pico de Orizaba:
Phillippe begins with the practical details: “Good evening, missionary friends, during the three days of this weekend [earlier as this was published in Spanish a while back] with my son Hugo, five French friends and under the direction of three Mexican mountain guides, we tried to climb the Pico de Orizaba. This mountain is 18,619 feet high, the highest mountain in Mexico and the highest and most extinct volcano in North America.”
He then went on to the challenges, “On Saturday night, we slept at 14,500 feet and started at midnight to climb for nine and a half hours, including four hours of climbing the glacier. At this point, the first challenge is breathing because there is 50% less oxygen in the air. Unfortunately, only a 29-year-old boy, William and I, managed to reach the summit, the others giving up earlier. We returned at 2:30pm, after fourteen and a half hours of walking.”
Then Phillippe moves to prayer, “From this summit I was able to pray for creation, for Mexico, for missionary families and for all the pastoral work that our family discovered with the missionaries. Thank you very much and see you later, Philippe.”
Mission Youth is a Regnum Christi apostolate organizing missions at various times of the year and in various locations. It seeks to collaborate in the evangelizing task of the Church, with the help of bishops and parish priests, through missionary action.
Nearly 50,000 missionaries in approximately 20 countries participate, and each year, they visit approximately one million people to bring them the message of Jesus Christ. The biggest missions are the Holy Week Missions (Megamissions) in Mexico. The Coronavirus pandemic has changed these Holy Week Missions, but it has not stopped them. People who want to spend Holy week sharing Christ’s love with others can join online missions organized by Mission Youth in many cities, even if they don’t live in that particular place.
This apostolate responds to the call of the New Evangelization launched by St. John Paul II, according to the mandate of Christ: “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole creation” (Mark 16:15).
Read the original in Spanish on the Mexican Regnum Christi site, SomosRC
