This past Sunday, Oct. 18, we celebrated World Mission Sunday. It was instituted by Pius XI on April 14, 1926. He decided that the celebration would take place every year the next-to-last Sunday of October. The pope expressly chose October because traditionally the discovery of America is celebrated on Oct. 12.
Pope Pius XI was a great promoter of missions. Elected as pope in 1922, he did something unprecedented during the solemnity of Pentecost that same year: overcome by emotion, he interrupted his homily focused on the need to take the Gospel to the world and amidst of total silence, took his white zucchetto and circulated it among the cardinals, bishops, priests and faithful present at St. Peter’s Basilica, doing the first collection for the missions.
World Mission Sunday is an occasion to commemorate and celebrate an essential aspect of our faith: that we are all missionaries by virtue of our baptism; and that we should all participate in the task of taking the Gospel to the whole world.
Pope Benedict XVI has chosen as the theme for his message for this World Mission Sunday the theme “The nations will walk in his light.” (Rev 21:24)
In his message, the Holy Father reminds us that “the whole of humanity has the radical vocation to return to its source, to return to God, since in Him alone can it find fulfillment through the restoration of all things in Christ.” And in the same message, the pope reminds us that all Catholics need “to renew our commitment to proclaiming the Gospel which is a leaven of freedom and progress, brotherhood, unity and peace.” (Message of Pope Benedict XVI for World Mission Sunday 2009)
Therefore, in this month of October, let us remember in our prayers all those who have dedicated their lives exclusively to evangelization and let us ask the Lord to continue to send laborers into his harvest.
Let us particularly remember those missionary men and women who proclaim Jesus Christ under threats, persecution, discrimination, incarceration, torture and even death. They are not figures from the past. Even today, as Pope John Paul II wrote, “our time is particularly rich with witnesses who, one way or another, have known how to live the Gospel in situations of hostility and persecution, often even giving their own blood as a supreme test.” (Novo millennio ineunte, 41)
But we should also renew our missionary zeal. We all, bishops, priests, consecrated men and women and the laity, are sent into the world to make known the name of Christ. As the Catechism teaches, the laity is given the “duty … to work so that the divine message of salvation may be known and accepted by all men throughout the earth. This duty is all the more pressing when it is only through them that men can hear the Gospel and know Christ.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 900)
Our mission is to share the good news of the Gospel; to be a light to our nation. But we face a culture that in many ways is more hostile to the Gospel than that faced by America’s first evangelists. We are called to be missionaries in a secular culture that rejects the essence of Jesus’ message, so our challenge is to open the hearts of the people of our time to the mystery of God, the mystery of the God who is love, the God who revealed his face in Christ Jesus.
Faith and core values provide the very foundation of our society. Our love of God, family and nation, our respect for the dignity of life and the pride we take in the preservation of our rich history and eternal optimism for the future are the very qualities that will continue to make this nation great.
As we remain committed to share with the world the shining light of Jesus Christ, let us use that creative passion to bring all people together in a spirit of unity and trust and let us continue to pray and participate in the missionary work of the church.