By Msgr. R. Vincent Gartland | Special to The Monitor

Be on the lookout for a very important event that will be coming to your parish soon. Each year every parish in the U.S. is given the opportunity to welcome a missionary speaker who will help all to become more aware of the missionary efforts of the Church and develop a missionary heart.

The Mission Cooperative Program coordinated through the diocesan Office of the Propagation of the Faith will provide a missionary speaker to every parish between May and September of this year. The Missionary speaker, either through the homily or remarks at the Sunday Mass, shares personal experiences of the mission work of a particular group or diocese. The speaker gives a personal face to the great missionary activity of the Church, and requests prayers and the financial assistance for their missionary efforts.  The opportunity to contribute financially is usually done through an extra collection which goes directly to the missions.

The Missionary Cooperative Program aims to enkindle in the hearts of the local parishioners, who otherwise do not have the ability to go to help the missions, a deeper sense of participation in this work. Pope Francis has reminded us that, “All the members of the Church are called to participate in the mission, for the Church is missionary by her very nature; she was born to go forth, and that the missionary task belongs to every baptized person and all Christian communities” (World Mission Day 2014).

Through this program parishioners in the Diocese of Trenton have been able to hear of the missionary efforts in the Philippines, Guatemala, El Salvador, Alaska, Uganda, Haiti and throughout the world. In addition they have become aware of several lay organizations that provide direct service to the poor and disenfranchised in a variety of developing countries as well as the United States.

Catholics are used to a variety of appeals for financial assistance through extra collections which are approved by the Diocese each year, such as Peter’s Pence, Catholic Relief Services, Retired Religious, etc. All of these are good and important causes that are very generously supported by the American Catholic Church. However, the Mission Cooperative Program is the only one in which someone is sent to tell the story, to create a “missionary heart” throughout the Diocese. Although the financial assistance is important, it is the telling of the missionary story that is primary.

Be on the alert for a missionary speaker who will be arriving in your parish this summer. Welcome them, pray for their efforts to develop a missionary spirit throughout the whole Church, especially during this 50th anniversary of the Decree on the Missionary Activity of the Church (Ad Gentes) of Vatican Council II.

Msgr. R. Vincent Gartland is a member of the Diocesan Mission Advisory Board, and pastor emeritus of St. Ann Parish, Lawrenceville. He is also a mission representative for the Diocese of Quiche, Guatemala, which he has been visiting for the past 25 years.