I SUSPECT WHEN MOST people hear about the missions it’s in relation to a second collection. So, at announcement time what you probably hear is:
“Next week a missionary will be here to ask for your help so please be generous in the second collection.”
Therefore, perhaps most people connect “missions” with “money.” Not prayer or good works or the spread of the Gospel – just money…your money. And granted, your financial support for churches that are too young, too poor, too marginalized or too persecuted is absolutely needed, but the story of our Catholic brothers and sisters around the world is much more compelling than “give us some money!” We ought to be concerned about the Church beyond our own parishes and diocese, and when opportunities to respond to that concern are presented to us, we ought to act!
The Mission Office of the Diocese of Orange is the local lifeline between the Mission Church and you, dear reader. There is a rather large organization that oversees the 1,130 mission territories around the world and their access to the spiritual and material support they need. Under the Holy Father Pope Leo XIV there are several departments (called Dicasteries). One of them is the Dicastery for Evangelization. This has four parts (called pontifical societies): Propagation of the Faith, Missionary Childhood Association, St. Peter the Apostle and Missionary Union. And each of these societies has very specific responsibilities that I will outline in another article. Every country has its own national mission office. In the United States it’s called Pontifical Mission Societies in the United States (TPMS). Bishop Kevin Vann sits on the National Board of Directors. TPMS oversees and directs a Mission Office in each diocese, and in Orange I am the director and Lourdes Leon is the associate director.
Our office works with our parochial schools to educate our children by sharing how children in other countries live and pray, often under conditions we in the U.S. don’t experience – poverty, poor education, civil unrest, persecution. We do this with the resources of the Missionary Childhood Association, “children helping children.”
We also receive applications from missionaries around the world and assign them to our parishes for a summer appeal called the Missionary Cooperation Plan (MCP). Yes, this is a second collection, but more importantly it is an opportunity for you to learn what it’s like to be a Catholic on another continent, and the struggles they have in spreading the Good News of Jesus in places that still have never heard of Him while dealing with challenges like poverty or persecution. Some of their stories are heart wrenching, detailing inconceivable sacrifice and material need. I remember a sister telling my congregation once about the need to build a school closer to the village so that children didn’t have to wade through a river full of alligators!
My office also coordinates the World Mission Sunday collection (WMS). Yes, again it is a second collection… but here again the opportunity is for our priests and deacons to preach about the missions, to help increase your awareness of how 75% of Catholics experience Church under circumstances thankfully we don’t live under. Many of our parishioners are from these mission territories and they personally know what it’s like to not have religious freedom, what it’s like to celebrate Mass in a shack, or only see a priest only twice a year because their village is so remote and clergy so scarce, or to walk for three hours to church on Sunday. We can’t imagine a Church like that, and frankly we can do a lot so that other churches have the resources they need, things we take for granted in the States.
This year, World Mission Sunday falls on Oct. 17 and 18. It is the 100th anniversary of this weekend of prayer and action for the missions, celebrated in every diocese in the world! We have a pope who was a missionary from the United States to Peru for many years and understands full well the needs of the Mission Church. And this September Archbishop Fulton Sheen will be beatified: he was in charge of the U.S. national mission office from 1950-1966. Older Catholics will remember him from his radio and television programs that reached millions every week and increased interest in the Mission Church more than anyone else in his time.
Now it’s our time to show our support through prayer and action for the Mission Church! I pray that every Catholic will respond generously to the missionaries who come to our parishes this summer. I pray that every Catholic will see himself/herself not as a passive parishioner, but as an active agent of the missions to help the Church bring Jesus to places we’ll never visit, to people who long for meaning and hope beyond the basic necessities of life which the Church offers along with the Gospel.
Archbishop Sheen, pray for us!