Children sing and wave flags before Pope Francis’ meeting with priests, religious and seminarians at the cathedral in Kampala, Uganda, Nov. 28, 2015. Uganda is among countries with projects that benefit from funds raised by the Pontifical Mission Societies, which organizes World Mission Sunday. CNS
My understanding of the word “mission” has changed greatly over the years. As a young child in a Catholic grade school, I collected money (mostly pennies) for the unbaptized babies in the missions. Our teachers told us stories about how we could all help the good sisters and the good brothers and fathers who served the missions, to feed, clothe, shelter and baptize the people they served.
As the kid who was going to be a priest, one too many classmates started to guess what foreign country I’d be sent to after ordination. I remember praying often — of course for the missions — and then adding, “Please, God, please, if I become a priest, don’t send me to the missions!”
Father Charles Lachowitzer
Fast-forward a couple of decades and I am a first-year seminarian at The St. Paul Seminary, walking with some other seminarians to St. John Vianney College Seminary. We passed an elderly priest, and one of my brothers greeted him by name: “Good afternoon, Msgr. Gilligan.” He smiled and asked if we were seminarians. We nodded and he continued his walk with the words, “Persevere, persevere.”
I would later learn about the work Mgsr. Gilligan did as an advocate for civil rights, decades before the 1960s civil rights movement. What I didn’t know was that Mgsr. Gilligan’s assignment at the time, which he dutifully carried out for 20 years until he was well into his 80s, was director of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith.
I was still a young priest when I received a typed thank-you note acknowledging the parish’s collection on World Mission Sunday, signed by Mgsr. Gilligan. Judging from one of the misaligned letters on his typewriter, he individually typed each thank you note. I have heard from other priests that Mgsr. Gilligan would annually type well over 150 of these personalized thank you notes.
As one can imagine, my invitation to parishioners to be generous for World Mission Sunday was greatly impacted by Mgsr. Gilligan’s personally typed and signed thank you cards. He went to that much effort because it was important to him, and that encouraged me to learn a lot more about the word “mission.”
World Mission Sunday is highlighted on pages 10-11 in this edition of The Catholic Spirit. It is worth our time to learn more about this global effort to support the work of so many missions. Yes, we are invited to pray for and financially support the missions, but we are also invited to inform ourselves of this important part of the universal mission of the Catholic Church. It is truly inspiring.
And even though my childhood fears about being sent to the missions never materialized, I owe a debt of gratitude to all the women and men who have worked with the missions in every corner of the earth. By our baptism, we are all called to be “missionary disciples.”
In his letter on World Mission Sunday, Pope Francis wrote: “Let us remember especially all those who resolutely set out, leaving home and family behind, to bring the Gospel to all those places and people athirst for its saving message.”
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