World Mission Sunday: A Reflection
But the Lord stood by me and gave me strength, so that through me the proclamation might be completed and all the Gentiles might hear it. (2 Timothy 4:17) In these words from today’s second reading, St. Paul captures the plight of the missionary who serves the Church abroad.
Our understanding of what it means to be a missionary has changed drastically over time. Two thousand years ago, just before Christ ascended into Heaven, He commissioned the Apostles with these words: “Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to all creation.” (Mt. 16:15). Some of them went as far as India, Lebanon, and Ethiopia. Eleven of the twelve, all but the Apostle John, suffered a martyr’s death.
After that, newer generations of missionaries still worked tirelessly to preach Christ to those who did not know Him. Their chief work was the conversion of souls, and success was measured by the parishes they founded, the sacraments they administered, and teaching the foreign cultures to adapt to a Christian lifestyle. They continued to preach Christ crucified, often facing the same hostility that the Apostles faced, and often meeting that same fate of martyrdom.
Though Christianity has permeated the world for two thousand years, the need for missionaries is no less now than it was during the time of the Apostles. In the past, the missionary was up against a world that did not know Christ at all, or had a distorted understanding of Him. They fought an idealogical battle against Jews who were resistant to the notion that God became incarnate in the person of Jesus. They grappled against cultures who embraced pagan gods. They argued against competing atheistic ideas. And even among baptized Christians, there exists a lack of faith and a lukewarm spirituality that begs for missionary presence. Has much really changed among the world’s population today?
When the missionary is immersed in a foreign land where he is the minority, he’s quite used to facing resistance among people who scoff at the notion that there is a God who created them, who loves them, and continues to bless them in ways they will never know or understand. In third world nations, people sometimes say, “God does not live here. That is something for the western world. If there is a God, He has forgotten about us here.” This is a sad, but common reality.
Sometimes when we imagine what the work of what a missionary does, we envision him/her wading through flooded villages, perhaps helping people rebuild after a natural disaster, or bringing supplies to orphanages in need. There are missionaries engaged in these kinds of efforts and there will probably be a need for this as long as humans dwell on the earth. And when they die, we will not know their names or the good deeds they performed. Instead, they will be rewarded in Heaven, just as Christ taught. (“…when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” -Mt 6:3-4)
Most of us are not called to go to foreign lands to preach the Gospel. Most of us will not give up our first world comforts to live among God’s children in third world lands. However, at the end of the day, a missionary is simply one soul who chooses to connect with another soul, in the name of Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit. In this sense, you too have the potential to be a great missionary.
There lives a Catholic missionary in northern Thailand, where recently, the region experienced a natural disaster in the form of tropical storms and record flooding. During the cleanup efforts, the man visited an orphanage that had experienced some structural damage to see if he could help. A boy that had seen him before asked, “Are you a missionary? I thought you said you were a Catholic.” The man responded, “I’m both. All Catholics are missionaries.”
On this World Mission Sunday, let us reflect on how we, as Catholics, can respond to the missionary call. We pray for our missionaries abroad. And we pray for ourselves at home, that we may honor Christ’s command to preach the Gospel to all people.
Sean served in youth ministry and IT at the Basilica of Regina Pacis in Brooklyn. Sean was born and raised in Brooklyn. After high school, he served in the Army as a Paratrooper for six years and is a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan. He then attended Fordham University, where he studied philosophy and theology.
Sean has a strong dedication to serving overseas missions and bringing the presence of Christ to those who do not know Him. He has spent much of his adult life evangelizing in Cambodia (and even adopted a dog there!) and Central America. He speaks often at retreats and other events, wishing to inspire our young people to respond to the call of holiness and sainthood. In his free time, he enjoys fishkeeping, road trips, and watching the Yankees.
