Rejoicing Once Again

What could top the celebration of World Mission Sunday -- the day when the world's Catholics unite at the Eucharist to recommit ourselves, through prayer and sacrifice, to the Church's mission to bring Jesus' message of love and hope to a waiting world? Well, there was something -- and it came by e-mail.

First, let's turn back time a bit, to this past spring. Back then, we received a note -- again by e-mail -- from our mission family in the Sudan. Bishop Akio Johnson Mutek of Torit wrote about the return of refugees from his diocese; they came by bus, by truck and on foot. A decades-long Good Friday in that African nation had been transformed into the joy of Easter as these hundreds of refugees -- scattered throughout that African nation and in neighboring Uganda as well -- came home.

War broke out in the Sudan in 1983, with the violence reaching Torit in 1986. Negotiations between 2002 and 2004 resulted in the signing of a Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005, eventually enabling this return of refugees.

As he watched his people return, Bishop Mutek wrote us, he said that he "saw the heart of Jesus." "All the suffering they had endured was before my eyes," he continued. "It was tied to the suffering of our Lord."


As he welcomed them home, Bishop Mutek celebrated Mass, praying and rejoicing with his people.

Just yesterday, on the Thursday after World Mission Sunday, Bishop Mutek wrote again -- with more "good news" of rejoicing. His people, returned from exile just months before, gathered at the Table of the Lord this past Sunday -- just as Catholics here in the United States and throughout the world did -- to celebrate our common vocation to be missionaries.

"The day of my joy, and the joy of the Church," he wrote of World Mission Sunday in Torit in the Sudan. "This World Mission Sunday was one of the best." Indeed, knowing that in the Sudan they were gathered, along with all of us here, to rejoice in the mission of all the baptized, is cause for great joy indeed. What could top the celebration of World Mission Sunday? Only more such "Good News" from the Missions!

A Week With Family

Sometimes the days are filled with meetings. This week, gratefully, those meetings were all about family.

After our office was closed Monday in observance of Columbus Day, allowing our national office family to spend time with their own families, I returned to work Tuesday still filled with the blessings of the encounters of my most recent mission visit to Asia. In the early afternoon, I welcomed Bishop Francis Antonysamy of Kumbakonam, India, and a priest from that country who is serving here, Father Raj Silva. I had met the bishop during a pastoral visit to India a year or so ago.

We spoke at length about the recent persecution of Christians in India, and about the unspeakable acts of violence committed against the Church and priests, Religious and lay Catholics.

How does the Church deal with that? How does anyone respond to such violence?

"We must educate about Jesus," Bishop Antonysamy told me. "We are called to witness to Jesus and to share His transforming, saving, life-giving love. Always we must uplift people in love."

Most appropriately, the very next day, our national office family welcomed those who can and do spread that message nationwide -- who raise awareness and support for the work of the Pontifical Mission Societies; such work benefits the Church in India and throughout the Developing World.

About a dozen of our diocesan mission office personnel -- from the Dioceses of Allentown (Pennsylvania), Arlington (Virginia), Orange and San Diego (California), and Paterson (New Jersey), as well as the Archdioceses of Chicago (Illinois), Indianapolis (Indiana) and Washington, D.C. -- came to the national office for a two-day orientation this past Wednesday and Thursday.



There were presentations by all members of the national office staff about the history of these Societies; about the support provided to the Missions -- where it goes, the process by which these distributions are decided; about where we've been able to send financial help this year because of your contributions; about our financial accountability and transparency, and about the programs and materials related to this process of informing -- educating about Jesus -- and forming Catholics here to be missionaries in prayer and sacrifice.

My time with family from diocesan offices included the celebration of Mass on each day.

At the celebration of the Eucharist, we find the source for our "uplifting" in the Lord, of which my friend in India spoke; there, at the altar, we find the fullest expression of what the Apostles were blessed to share in the Upper Room. Our Lord, present in the Eucharist, strengthens us as it does our brothers and sisters in India, to face the challenges, the difficulties, yes even the dangers of our lives. Our Lord, present in the Eucharist, nourishes each of us in the work of the Pontifical Mission Society to support the Church as it serves and uplifts the poor and the suffering. Our Lord, present in the Eucharist, sustains each one of us in our daily call to be His missionaries.

What a great way to spend the week before World Mission Sunday! May this Sunday's "family" celebration of our Baptismal vocation to witness to Jesus renew all the baptized in their commitment to our Lord's mission around the world.