uring Mass on Sundays and feast days the congregation prays the Creed and proclaims faith in “one, holy, catholic and apostolic” Church, mentioning four traits of the Church as Tradition and doctrine have handed on in the history of the faith. There is no explicit mention of “missionary nature”; nevertheless the Church is missionary by nature. 

Its missionary nature from the theological point of view is implied in each of those mentioned traits, particularly its Catholic and Apostolic nature. How can all peoples be reached, how can the announcement of the salvation brought by Christ be rendered truly universal, that is Catholic, if not through the missionary impulse of the Church and its living members? How can we fulfill faithfully the duty of being apostles, the Lord's faithful witnesses, announcers of the Word and humble and confident administrators of Grace, if not through missionary activity, understood as an authentic constitutive factor of being Church?

Mission is not first and foremost a series of initiatives to be undertaken, a human project to achieve independently from listening to the reality and the will of the Lord. Nor does mission depend on the available resources, human and economic. The great Saints began extraordinary missions without any human means but with the sole “powerful weapon” of faith, total and confident trust in divine Providence, the certainty that we are totally loved by the Lord and so called to love others.

Mission is a question of self-awareness. Who is the Christian? The missionary, the priest, the apostle? What is his specific identity? It is not a question of establishing roles, “power sharing” in the Church! Even less is it a matter of distinguishing between “missionary Church” and “Church”, as if within the One Body of Christ there could exit autonomous organs not totally dependent and connected with the whole Body.

“Missionary endeavor is still the first service which the Church owes to humanity today, to orient and evangelize cultural, social and ethical changes and to offer Christ’s salvation to the men and women of our day humiliated and oppressed in many parts of the world because of endemic poverty, violence and systematic denial of human rights”.

It is a question of starting from the one truly essential thing: a personal relationship with Jesus of Nazareth, Lord and Christ, center of the cosmos and of History, and the only Savior of the human race. On each one's personal relationship with the Lord Jesus depends the entire mission of the Church. 

Then mission, constitutive of being the Church, is nourished first of all with prayer, as Pope Benedict XVI recalled in Deus Caritas Est (#37): “It is time to reaffirm the importance of prayer in the face of the activism and the growing secularism of many Christians engaged in charitable work. Clearly, the Christian who prays does not claim to be able to change God's plans or correct what God has foreseen. Rather, Christians seek an encounter with the Father of Jesus Christ, asking God to be present with the consolation of the Spirit to them and their work”.

Mission, we could say, is a question of identity and heart. Never forgetting that as in the early Christian times, only those who are able to defend the faith are able also to evangelize. Therefore “explaining the reasons” or, in more traditional terms, apologetics, is an essential moment of evangelization and mission. 

Rev Nicola Bux and Rev Salvatore Vitiello
(from Fides Service - Sept. 20, 2007)

---

What Is World Mission Sunday?

World Mission Sunday, organized by the Propagation of the Faith, is a day set aside for Catholics worldwide to recommit themselves to the Church's missionary activity through prayer and sacrifice.

Annually, World Mission Sunday is celebrated on the next-to-last Sunday in October. As described by Pope John Paul II, World Mission Sunday is "an important day in the life of the Church because it teaches how to give: as an offering made to God, in the Eucharistic celebration and for all the missions of the world" (see Redemptoris Missio 81). 

What makes World Mission Sunday such an important celebration in our Church? 
As the title reminds us, it is a universal celebration carried out through the world in which all members in every country, diocese and parish lift up their minds and hearts in solidarity with Christ, our Lord and Savior. We are asked to consider that the Church is larger than our own locale. The problems and challenges in our own place must be situated in the context of the larger Church. It is not just a “second collection”; it is a mindset, a mission mentality, celebrated on this day. 

Pope John Paul II has also spoken of the Propagation of the Faith's General Fund of support, calling this a "central fund of solidarity." In a message delivered on a recent World Mission Sunday, the Pope said: "The offerings that will be collected [on World Mission Sunday] are destined for a common fund of solidarity distributed, in the Pope's name, by the Society for the Propagation of the Faith among the missions and missionaries of the entire world." 

Every year the needs of the Catholic Church in the Missions grow - as new dioceses are formed, as new seminaries are opened because of the growing number of young men hearing Christ's call to follow Him as priests, as areas devastated by war or natural disaster are rebuilt, and as other areas, long suppressed, are opening up to hear the message of Christ. That is why the involvement and commitment of Catholics from around the world is so urgently needed. 

Mission dioceses - about 1,100 at this time - receive regular annual assistance. In addition, these mission dioceses submit requests to the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples for assistance, among other needs, for catechetical programs, seminaries, the work of Religious Communities, for communication and transportation needs, and for the building of chapels, churches, orphanages and schools.