Sunday 18th October 2020
Sunday 18th October 2020World Mission Sunday an annual celebration where Churches around the world in every Catholic community join together to renew their commitment to the missionary mandate. The day signifies a moment of solidarity among brothers and sisters in Christ who are living in situations of poverty, violence and oppression.
This year, a year of the Covid pandemic, has seen a year of suffering, new challenges, and people around the world having to adapt to new ways of life of coming together while being apart. It reminds us that we are one with the Church around the world and that we are all committed to carrying on the mission of Christ, however different our situations may be.
His Holiness Pope Francis in his letter for the celebration of Mission Sunday says: ” Understanding what God is saying to us at this time of pandemic also represents a challenge for the Church’s mission. Illness, suffering, fear and isolation challenge us. The poverty of those who die alone, the abandoned, those who have lost their jobs and income, the homeless and those who lack food challenge us. Being forced to observe social distancing and to stay at home invites us to rediscover that we need social relationships as well as our communal relationship with God. Far from increasing mistrust and indifference, this situation should make us even more attentive to our way of relating to others. And prayer, in which God touches and moves our hearts, should make us ever more open to the need of our brothers and sisters for dignity and freedom, as well as our responsibility to care for all creation. The impossibility of gathering as a Church to celebrate the Eucharist has led us to share the experience of the many Christian communities that cannot celebrate Mass every Sunday. In all of this, God’s question: “Whom shall I send?” is addressed once more to us and awaits a generous and convincing response: “Here am I, send me!” (Is 6:8). God continues to look for those whom he can send forth into the world and to the nations to bear witness to his love, his deliverance from sin and death, his liberation from evil (cf. Mt 9:35-38; Lk 10:1-12).“
Please click here to read the full letter from His Holiness Pope Francis
