#missionsunday #worldmissionsunday
“Everyone who acknowledges me before men, the Son of man also will acknowledge before the angels of God; but he who denies me before men will be denied before the angels of God.” Luke 12, 8 to 9. This is the summary of today’s reflection.
As we celebrate World Mission Sunday today, we are reminded of our primary duty as Christians which is: witnessing to the truth that Christ lives by first and foremost, the standard of our lives, our good example and by our words. A great man once said: “Preach Christ, but use words only when necessary.”
According to the Holy Father, Pope Francis, in his message for world mission Sunday, “being a missionary is not about proselytizing or mere strategy; mission is part of the ‘grammar’ of faith, something essential for those who listen to the voice of the Spirit who whispers ‘Come’ and ‘Go forth.’ Those who follow Christ cannot fail to be missionaries, for they know that Jesus ‘walks with them, speaks to them, and breathes with them.”
This means that, no one can say he is a Christian and not a missionary at the same time. Whatever makes you a Christian also makes you a missionary by that very fact. We all became missionaries the day we became Christians and as long as we live, we continue to witness to Christ on a continuous basis. By whatever we do or refuse to do, by whatever we say or refuse to say, by whatever we wear or refuse to wear, by the way we talk or refuse to talk, we are witnessing! It is either we are proclaiming Christ or denying him but whichever way, we continue to witness.
Today, no less than in the past, missionaries prepared to leave their homelands to bear witness to Christ beyond the existing frontiers of the Church are vital for the health of the Church’s missionary vocation. Rejecting the idea the era the mission to the nations is over, Pope John Paul II, stated, to the contrary, that it is ‘still in its infancy’. Pope Francis in his Message for World Mission Sunday, endorses this call, stating that ‘the Church must constantly keep pressing forward, beyond her own confines, in order to testify to all the love of Christ’.
Mission is about loving Christ, being guided by his teaching and example, and living that out in the workplace and in the community.
Today’s missionaries are parents who have love and prayer in the home as cornerstones of their lives.
Today’s missionaries are young people who cherish God’s creation, care for it and strive for its protection.
Today’s missionaries see human life as a precious gift from God and strive to have it protected from the moment of conception.
We’re used to the idea that mission is about going somewhere far away, to bring the message of Christ and to make that message of love concrete through health, education and various other kinds of assistance.
All of that is correct, but there’s more to mission that just what happens abroad. Think about the first four letters of the world ‘mission’: M-I-S-S. Those same letters are in the word that describes the very last thing that happens at every Mass: the dis-MISS-al. That little syllable, miss, is a close cousin of the word Mass. Which is to say that what we do here is meant to be about mission. We come to Mass to become more and more missionary. We’re sent out from Mass: we’re dismissed, as missionaries.
Our own hearts and lives can often be foreign territory, as far as the Lord and his Gospel are concerned. It might be easy enough to keep mission at arm’s length, even to send a donation or a contribution to help out. But those missionary questions keep coming back to us: have we got faith? Do we treasure faith? Do we want to share our faith, to live by it? If we’re not at least trying to answer ‘yes’ to those questions, then it’s our lives, our hearts, that are foreign territory to the Gospel. On this Mission Sunday, may the Lord give us a desire to answer yes, a desire for a deeper faith, a faith we treasure, a faith we want to share by living it out in concrete ways. And - who knows! - even talking about it.
World Mission Sunday challenges us to reflect on how we are living out our baptismal calling to witness to Christ in all situations and not to give up. It invites us to deepen our love of Christ, to welcome the power of the Holy Spirit afresh into our lives, and to be living examples - wherever we are and whoever we are - of the Father’s care for all of creation. Together, we are mission!
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Негізгі бет World Mission Sunday| 20 October 2024 |
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