world mission

World Mission Sunday

We are all called to be missionary since Baptism. It is not just the priests and Sisters who are called to go on the missions. You too are called to be missionary since your baptism, to be missionary where you are by letting the light of Jesus shine where you are. Some times we are afraid to reveal our Identity because we are frightened that we need to help them. Remember what Jesus said,
“You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill-top cannot be hidden. No one lights a lamp to put it under a tub; they put it on the lamp-stand where it shines for everyone in the house. In the same way your light must shine in people’s sight so that seeing your good works they may give praise to your Father in heaven.” (Matt 6)
On their way back home from an evening walk the child saw a poor man fighting with a dog to get his meal from a waste barrel. She felt sorry for this poor man and asked her mother Mummy, why didn’t God sent an Angel to help this poor man to find some food? Mummy said, honey who told you God did not sent an Angel in this world? He created you to be an Angel for this poor Man.
Dear brothers and sisters, God is asking us to become an Angel for our neighbors. Are you ready to become an Angel for someone who is utterly in need of help?
You don’t have to go to Africa or India to be a missionary; you can be a missionary in this parish and in the place where you work. And sometimes it may be more difficult to be a missionary in your own parish and in the place where you work than being a missionary in Africa. You know that the Patron Saint of the Missions is St Thérèse of Lisieux and she never set foot on the missions. So you don’t have to go to Africa to be a missionary, you can be a missionary in your own parish and in the place where you work.
When you have good news you want to share it. It is the same with faith in God. When people are so enthusiastic about what God has done for us they want to share it. The Father sending his Son Jesus on the greatest mission to us has inspired countless men and women down through the centuries to also go on a mission to spread the kingdom of God.
I heard people say “Father you know me. What can I give for that”? No one, in fact, is so poor that they have nothing to give. We share in missionary activity first of all through prayer, during liturgy or in the secret of our room, through sacrifice and offering up our sufferings to God. This is the first sort of cooperation which everyone can offer. And we support all the missionaries and the mission work through our prayers.
It is also important not to neglect economic support, vital for so many Particular Churches. Your sacrifice that you saved for the mission will allow many people to have a meal a day and they will remember you in their prayers.
On this Mission Sunday we are invited to remember those Churches and missionaries who are faced by persecution, to pray for them, and to be one with them as they try even in these difficult situations to witness to the love of God. It is not easy to be a missionary, sometimes we need to be in the Forest with them for moths where there is no proper shelter, and we need to walk miles and miles. My friends were killed, one was killed by 52 stabs while she was traveling in the bus, One priest was behead , many nuns were raped, One missionary was burned alive with his two kids while they were taking rest in their vehicle. When we see our brothers and sisters living in slums exploited by many having no education, no food and clothing do we not feel comfortable to do nothing for them? That is the zeal of a missionary, the compassionate love of Christ and His promise that He is with them always.
Mission Sunday is indeed a gift to the Church. It reminds us that we are one with the Church around the world and that we are all committed to carrying on the mission of Christ, however different our situations may be.
Mother Teresa, an icon of the Good Samaritan, went everywhere to serve Christ in the poorest of the poor. Not even conflict and war could stand in her way.
She often used to say: "If you hear of some woman who does not want to keep her child and wants to have an abortion, try to persuade her to bring him to me. I will love that child, seeing in him the sign of God's love".
The cry of Jesus on the Cross, "I thirst" (Jn 19: 28), expressing the depth of God's longing for man, penetrated Mother Teresa's soul and found fertile soil in her heart. Satiating Jesus' thirst for love and for souls in union with Mary, the Mother of Jesus, had become the sole aim of Mother Teresa's existence and the inner force that drew her out of herself and made her "run in haste" across the globe to labor for the salvation and the sanctification of the poorest of the poor.
As described by Pope John Paul II, World Mission Sunday is "an important day in the life of the Church because it teaches how to give: as an offering made to God, in the Eucharistic celebration and for all the missions of the world” (Redemptoris Missio 81).
I do hope you know what is the Society of the Propagation of the Faith? The Society for the Propagation of the Faith was founded in Lyons, France, in 1822 by a young French laywoman, Pauline Jaricot. Inspired by stories she heard about missionary work in China, she felt called by the Lord to help the Catholic Church's worldwide missionary work. Pauline herself never traveled to the Missions, which, during her lifetime, consisted of the Missions in China — and young dioceses in the United States. Pauline gathered friends and workers in a family silk mill into "circles of ten," asking each person to pray daily for the Missions and sacrifice a penny-a-week (at that time, quite a large sacrifice!). From this idea emerged the Propagation of the Faith.
Today the General Fund of the Propagation of the Faith, which gathers gifts from Catholics all over the world, is the basic means of support for the Catholic Church's worldwide Missions, especially the 1,150 struggling diocese in the developing world. And you are part of that great help.
We all need to be missionaries where we are and what we are doing. Mother Theresa of Calcutta said “The most terrible poverty is loneliness and the feeling of being unloved” The biggest disease today is not leprosy or tuberculosis, but rather the feeling of being unwanted. There is more hunger in the world for love and appreciation than for bread. We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty. We must start in our own homes to remedy this kind of poverty. Every time you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing.”
“We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.”
Mother Theresa said “I am not sure exactly what heaven will be like, but I do know that when we die and it comes time for God to judge us, he will not ask, how many good things you have done in your life? Rather he will ask, how much LOVE did you put into what you did?
When a rich man saw mother Theresa helping a dying man and cleaning his wounds and feeding him, he asked why mother he is ugly and dying what are you doing with him. She said, when we born we born crying you see on his face he is dying but he has a smile on his face. Yes dear brothers and sisters in Christ, can you help a single person to live in this world with a smile on their face?
I am sure that you are very generous. When you have a full meal remember there are many who are crying around the world for food. Usually when a missionary comes once in a Year the second collection is a very quite collection .You know why because there is no noise of the coins. I thank you all once again for your patient attention and your inspiration to help the mission to your level best. may God bless you all.