World Mission Sunday, 2013 message from Bishop David M. O'Connell, C.M.
July 29, 2019 at 12:37 p.m.
My dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Our Catholic Church, at every level and by its very nature, is missionary, rooted in the very mission of Jesus Christ and of the Holy Spirit. It is in Christ alone that “salvation is offered to all people, as a gift of God’s grace and mercy” (see Ephesians 2:8; Romans 1:16).
In every nation, World Mission Sunday will be observed on the weekend of Oct. 19-20. It is a time for all Catholics to be inspired once again by those priests, religious and lay missionaries who make it possible for the most needy in foreign lands to encounter Christ, the Sacraments, and living faith. We may not ever know their names or actually see their faces but they are our sisters and brothers. Our concern and generosity are, at times, the only things that give them hope.
The Society for the Propagation of the Faith is the Church’s chief missionary arm, providing essential resources for more than 1,150 mission dioceses the world over. Without its efforts, human lives would end without ever hearing the Gospel or knowing Jesus Christ. No work of the Church is more central to her reason for being. As your Bishop, I am asking that every parish and all the faithful celebrate World Mission Sunday.
In his address in advance of World Mission Sunday, our beloved Holy Father Pope Francis has offered his own encouragement: “The Church – I repeat again – is not a relief organization, an enterprise or an NGO, but a community of people, animated by the Holy Spirit, who have lived and are living the wonder of the encounter with Jesus Christ and want to share this experience of deep joy, the message of salvation that the Lord gave us. It is the Holy Spirit that guides the Church in this path.”
The theme for the United States’ observance of this day is: “Do good on earth,” taken from the words of St. Thérèse of Lisieux, the young Carmelite Sister who is the Patroness of the Missions. It is a call to put our faith into action.
At a time when the needs in the Church’s Missions have grown substantially and the cries of the poor are louder and more urgent than ever before, I turn to you, again, to beg your generosity on their behalf. In this way, you and every Catholic can become a missionary and every parish can reveal the Church’s true nature.
In the end, the words of the Catechism of the Catholic Church ring true: “It is by what they have done for the poor that Jesus Christ will recognize his chosen ones” (CCC, 2443).
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My dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Our Catholic Church, at every level and by its very nature, is missionary, rooted in the very mission of Jesus Christ and of the Holy Spirit. It is in Christ alone that “salvation is offered to all people, as a gift of God’s grace and mercy” (see Ephesians 2:8; Romans 1:16).
In every nation, World Mission Sunday will be observed on the weekend of Oct. 19-20. It is a time for all Catholics to be inspired once again by those priests, religious and lay missionaries who make it possible for the most needy in foreign lands to encounter Christ, the Sacraments, and living faith. We may not ever know their names or actually see their faces but they are our sisters and brothers. Our concern and generosity are, at times, the only things that give them hope.
The Society for the Propagation of the Faith is the Church’s chief missionary arm, providing essential resources for more than 1,150 mission dioceses the world over. Without its efforts, human lives would end without ever hearing the Gospel or knowing Jesus Christ. No work of the Church is more central to her reason for being. As your Bishop, I am asking that every parish and all the faithful celebrate World Mission Sunday.
In his address in advance of World Mission Sunday, our beloved Holy Father Pope Francis has offered his own encouragement: “The Church – I repeat again – is not a relief organization, an enterprise or an NGO, but a community of people, animated by the Holy Spirit, who have lived and are living the wonder of the encounter with Jesus Christ and want to share this experience of deep joy, the message of salvation that the Lord gave us. It is the Holy Spirit that guides the Church in this path.”
The theme for the United States’ observance of this day is: “Do good on earth,” taken from the words of St. Thérèse of Lisieux, the young Carmelite Sister who is the Patroness of the Missions. It is a call to put our faith into action.
At a time when the needs in the Church’s Missions have grown substantially and the cries of the poor are louder and more urgent than ever before, I turn to you, again, to beg your generosity on their behalf. In this way, you and every Catholic can become a missionary and every parish can reveal the Church’s true nature.
In the end, the words of the Catechism of the Catholic Church ring true: “It is by what they have done for the poor that Jesus Christ will recognize his chosen ones” (CCC, 2443).
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