World Mission Sunday

Collections will be taken up in parishes across the globe to supply funds for the 1,100 parishes considered to be mission parishes.  Pope St. John Paul II set the date for the collection as the second last Sunday in October, but this year it coincides with what would have been the Memorial of the North American Martyrs: St. Isaac Jogues and Companions.  Because Sundays take precedence over feasts and memorials, the Mass for the 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time is being used. However, their missionary spirit still serves as an example to us.  It is also the day when the Extraordinary Synod on the family ends and Pope Paul VI was beatified.  Pope Paul VI in his encyclical, Evangelium Nuntiandi set the tone for missionary work in a Post Vatican II Church.
With these powerful "mentors" giving impetus to Mission Sunday, we might consider how we can be missionaries ourselves.  The easy way is to donate to the collection, but more than that, can we live more fully the message of Jesus, by professing our faith through kindness, service to the needy, listening to others, forgiving ourselves and others and welcoming all into our circle?  We preach by example, by deed, more powerfully than by words. May we come to see ourselves as this kind of missionary as we take part in our Sunday and weekday activities.  We need to keep reminding ourselves that we too have a mission right here; we don't have to go abroad.
Bro. Rene