World Mission Sunday

Catholics throughout the world are invited to recommit themselves to the Church’s missionary activity through prayer and sacrifice by observing World Mission Sunday on October 23rd. Instituted for the whole Church by Pope Pius XI in 1926, it is traditionally celebrated on the next-to-last Sunday each October.

Today, let us join our brothers and sisters around the world who gather at the Lord’s Table to celebrate, with great joy, our common vocation as missionaries. Our prayers and concrete gestures of solidarity will help build local churches across the globe. Through the work of these churches, and their witness to Christ, the poor receive practical help and experience God’s love and mercy, His hope and peace.

World Mission Sunday truly belongs to the world. It is celebrated in every country, in every diocese, and in every parish — in a remote chapel far out in the African bush, in a predominantly Muslim or Hindu area in Asia, in a poor village in Latin America. We are citizens of the world, members of the one Body of Christ, and are at our best when we act lovingly and generously to our brothers and sisters in the Missions.

Every year the needs of the Catholic Church in the missions grow, with new dioceses, new seminaries, and new areas opening up to hear the message of Christ. Offerings from Catholics in the United States, on World Mission Sunday, are combined with offerings to the Propagation of the Faith worldwide.

Whatever you can contribute to the collection for the Society for the Propagation of the Faith will be a great blessing to local priests, religious, and lay catechists throughout Asia, Africa, the Pacific Islands, and parts of Europe and Latin America.

Thank you for your generous response to the Society for the Propagation of Faith. May God bless you greatly for all you do for the Mission Church.

Fr. Chester