THIS MAY COME AS a surprise, but you who are reading this article right now, you are a missionary!
How can that be, you ask? I thought missionaries were priests or nuns who went to far-off places on other continents to teach people who have never heard of Jesus that He died and rose for them?
True, this is one definition of a missionary. In recent years, though, there’s been a lot of talk about us Catholics being “missionary disciples,” people delegated on God’s behalf, as baptized members of the Church, to reveal God in the world in the Person of Christ in the midst of His Church! You, my friend, are given a great responsibility to show that God is active in this world, that Heaven is for real, that Jesus is present in His followers, and that you as one of those followers (disciples), by your words and deeds can in fact further the reach of Christ and His Church! Pope Francis made this idea popular during his pontificate and his writings (see Joy of the Gospel (Evangelii Gaudium), 2013). It’s not that you’re tasked with doing something extraordinary or supernatural — all Christ wants is that you live your life in such a way that others can see that your faith in Christ gives your life meaning; that your faith informs your actions; that your daily life, with all its normal activities, is exactly that place Christ wants to encounter you doing good and drawing others to Him. Your mission field isn’t some far-off place; it’s your own home, family, coworkers, classmates, friends, even strangers you encounter in your daily routines. It is also true that there are people who have been called to a special vocation of missionary activity. Priests, religious and lay people, too, who were born and raised in mission lands, or who have traveled to territories that are too young, poor, fragile or persecuted to be self-sufficient.
Right now, there are 1,130 mission territories around the world asking for the support of the whole Church. They want to do the same things we do in our parishes and dioceses: build churches, grow their congregations, teach their adults and children, serve the poor and live their faith in the midst of cultures and lifestyles we would have a hard time understanding, let alone experiencing them ourselves.
How then can you be a missionary? There is a popular quote that sums it up, although its author is unknown: “Some give by going to the missions. Some go by giving to the missions. Without both there are no missions.” Your intentional daily prayer for those who work in mission lands is essential: never underestimate the power of your prayer. Also, there are some who are called to work in the missions and join a missionary religious order or society and leave the comforts of home to work in the missions. But for most of us (I include myself, as a diocesan priest), the way we “go” to the missions is by our charitable and sacrificial giving. You do this whenever your parish has a second collection specifying a mission outreach: World Mission Sunday (the next-to-last weekend of October); collections for Latin America, central and eastern Europe, and Africa; Catholic home missions; Catholic Relief Services; Peter’s Pence; Good Friday collection for the Holy Land; summertime missionary in your parish (Mission Cooperative Plan); and occasional collections for disaster relief.
As you can see, there are many second collections in our parishes directed to missionary efforts around the world. I underline two of them as they directly relate to my work as the Director of the Mission Office of the Diocese of Orange: World Mission Sunday 2026, Oct. 17 and 18, and Mission Cooperative Plan (MCP) happening in our parishes during the summer. These two are of particular importance as they are organized by this Office. My hope is that as a missionary speaks to you of a specific need in his or her mission, you will respond with a worthy sacrifice to help make that need a reality. World Mission Sunday this Oct. 17 and 18 is my other focus. This year is a special time for this collection. It is the 100th anniversary of World Mission Sunday!
We’ve been taking up this collection since 1826 back when the United States was still mission territory. And it is the only collection mandated by Canon Law, the law that governs the Church’s activity. This 100th anniversary is happening during the pontificate of a man who spent most of his priestly life as a missionary in Peru, having been born and raised in Chicago: he has a true missionary heart! And this Sept. 24, the Church will beatify Archbishop Fulton Sheen who was the Director of the Pontifical Mission Societies in the United States from 1950 to 1966. His radio and television programs gave him a means to evangelize not only in the U.S., but he directed many people to give to the mission Church and personally gave from his own resources. That makes this year an opportunity to really step up. So much good can
come from our giving to the missions, to practice our own missionary discipleship through prayer and sacrificial giving. I pray you will join me in making this year’s World Mission Sunday a greater success than ever. Bishop Sheen: pray for us!