Top photo caption: Father Jean Felicien, diocesan chancellor, and Father Peter James Alindogan, diocesan missions director, are shown during a missions visit to Madagascar. Courtesy photo
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Today, as we celebrate World Mission Sunday, I want to speak to you personally about something very close to the heart of the Church–and very close to my heart as your Bishop: our responsibility to share Jesus Christ with the world.
Before He ascended into heaven, Jesus entrusted His disciples with a mission: “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations” (Mt 28:19). That mission did not end with the Apostles. It has been handed down from generation to generation, and today it has been entrusted to you and me.
There are still billions of people in our world who have never truly encountered Christ. In many places, the Church is only beginning to take root. Priests travel great distances to celebrate Mass. Religious sisters serve the sick and poor with very limited resources. Catechists bring the faith to remote villages. Seminarians prepare for priesthood in communities that can barely afford to support them.
These are the people we help on World Mission Sunday.
This year is particularly meaningful because we celebrate the 100th anniversary of World Mission Sunday. Pope Leo XIV has chosen the theme “One in Christ, United in Mission.” I find those words especially appropriate. We may live on different continents and speak different languages, but through Baptism we belong to one family. Their joys are our joys. Their struggles are our struggles. Their mission is our mission.
This year also has special meaning for us because of the beatification of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, one of the great missionary voices of the American Church. Although millions knew him through television and his books, Sheen once said, “My greatest love has always been for the missions of the Church.” For 16 years, he led The Pontifical Mission Societies in the United States and devoted himself tirelessly to supporting missionaries throughout the world.
How wonderful that, on this centennial World Mission Sunday, we can now ask Blessed Fulton J. Sheen to pray with us and for us.
Pope Leo XIV understands the missionary Church in a deeply personal way as well. He spent many years of his priestly ministry serving as a missionary in Peru. He knows what it means for a small and struggling Catholic community to realize that Catholics somewhere else in the world are praying for them and have not forgotten them.
His appeal to us is very simple: “Please help me help missionaries everywhere.”
Today, I join the Holy Father in making that appeal to you.
Please pray for our missionaries. Pray for the priests, religious, catechists, and lay missionaries who serve far from home. Pray especially for the people they serve, many of whom live with poverty, persecution, violence, or circumstances we can scarcely imagine.
And if you are able, please give generously to today’s World Mission Sunday collection.
I know there are many demands upon you and your families. I know our own parishes have needs as well. That is why I am especially grateful for whatever sacrifice you are able to make. No gift offered in faith is insignificant. Together, our gifts educate seminarians, support priests and religious, train catechists, sustain struggling parishes, and bring the Gospel to places where Christ is still waiting to be known.
We may never meet the people who will be helped by what we give today. We may never see the chapel that was built, the seminarian who became a priest, the child who learned to pray, or the family that discovered Christ.
But God sees them. And through our generosity, they will know that they are not alone and that the Church has not forgotten them.
Thank you for the goodness and generosity with which you continue to support the Church and her mission. As your Bishop, I am deeply grateful for your faith and for the many ways you make Christ present here in our Diocese and far beyond its boundaries.
May the Holy Spirit rekindle in each of us the joy of sharing Christ with others. And through the intercession of Blessed Fulton J. Sheen, may our entire diocesan family truly become One in Christ, United in Mission.
With affection and every good wish, I remain
Faithfully yours in Christ
Most Reverend David M. O’Connell, C.M.
Bishop of Trenton