29th Sunday B
Mission Sunday,
St. Colman's Cathedral, Cobh
20 October 2024
My friends,
When we complete our prayer time at Mass we send one another out from here to continue the mission of sharing the good news of the Gospel by our lives as much as our words.
Not long into his ministry as Pope Francis the Pastor and Shepherd to the Church worldwide he began a review of the Vatican Administration often referred to as the Curia. The Curia is a bureaucracy at the service of the Church. However, like many bureaucracies or part there of they can become almost an end in itself forgetting the reason they exist in the first place. For that reason Pope Francis undertook a review of the Curia’s function and operation. It may not surprise you it took nine years! Its fruit was published in a document ‘Praedicate Evangelium’ – To preach the Gospel. It is a detailed document but its purpose is in the title “To Preach the Gospel” that is the sole and singular mission of the Church.
I mention this fact because it is a central theme of the Papacy of Francis – a theme reflected in his travel to far away places where you have small Christian communities. It’s reflected too in his meetings with religious leaders of other faiths showing a respect and fraternity for their goodwill and belief.
In our history ‘the Missions’ were the places where so many of our own went on Mission and gave their lives in service to those to whom they were sent. There are many still working and giving generously of themselves without counting the cost. Today we remember them with profound gratitude for their witness and their love for those to whom they were sent.
Today we sense a shift in the understanding of the task of the person who goes on a mission and indeed in the nature of the mission itself. We’re recognising the need for a new sense of mission being called for not so much to the countries of the global south but here at home and in the western world that has become lukewarm if not indifferent to the needs of large parts of the world.
Mission Sunday is a necessary and constant reminder for us of the core of the church and the people of God as the ones called to be open hearted as God is open hearted, to show to one another that it is in our giving we receive, in our generosity we and others find the richness of acceptance and dignity.
For the Church in Ireland this is a testing time. We risk becoming down hearted and dispirited. Mission Sunday speaks to us too – carries the invite to renew our reflection and prayer on what a renewal of mission entails in our time – amongst one another, young and old. Despite our prosperity there is great stress and emptiness in the lives of many. Can we help one another to recognise the deep thirst and hunger within? Can we help one another to look beyond the bombardment of the senses that imprisons us to see a simpler more obvious and immediate gift of one another.
Go and invite all to the banquet
Matt 22:9
