My dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

This Sunday, we celebrate the 81st World Mission Sunday. “All the Churches for All the World” is the theme chosen by Pope Benedict XVI. The Holy Father said the theme “invites the local Churches of every continent to a shared awareness of the urgent need to relaunch missionary action in the face of the many serious challenges of our time.”

The vocation of the Church is to be in mission and communion with all the local churches in the world – those of so-called “ancient tradition” and the recently evangelized churches. In order to exercise that communion, a sharing of resources must occur. Mission Sunday gives us the opportunity to share the resources of prayer and monetary contributions to further the mission of the Church, which from its very beginning was missionary.

This year also marks the 50th anniversary of the encyclical of Pope Pius XII, Servant of God, entitled “Fidei Donum” (“The Gift of Faith”). The papal document, issued before the Second Vatican Council, called the Church to communion in the missionary effort. The encyclical promotes and encourages cooperation between churches for the mission to those who are not Christian, and also encourages a sharing of missionaries from the more established churches to the new churches in mission lands or those which lack sufficient clergy personnel.

A wonderful reflection on this encyclical by Cardinal Gaudencio Rosales of Manila was recently published. In it, Cardinal Rosales emphasized the three most important moments in Christian life. These moments are inseparable from one another. They are stages that we can see in Jesus’ beginning of His public mission in the world.

The first moment is when Jesus called and chose the apostles He wanted to be His disciples; the second moment is when He made them His constant friends and companions; and finally, the third moment is when the apostles were sent out to proclaim the message to the world.

These three important moments in the life of the early Church are parallel to our own lives: first, at our Baptism, when we are chosen; second, as we develop our spiritual lives to be a friend of Jesus, and third, how we exercise the missionary vocation to which all of us are called in some way. Mission Sunday is the day on which we can meditate on these three most important moments of our lives.

It might be good to understand how we organized as a Mission Church. The Holy Father today has the Pontifical Mission Societies (Propagation of the Faith, Holy Childhood, St. Peter Apostle being the three most active and well-known internationally) as part of the Congregation for the Evangelization of the Peoples. That congregation traces its roots to the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, organized through the efforts of St. John Leonardi to meet the missionary needs of the Church in the 16th century. The Church in the USA, first, in its western area even before it was part of the USA, and then in its eastern colonies through their struggles for independence and eventual expansion westward as a nation, was dependent upon that mission congregation. In fact, until the early part of the 20th century the Church in the USA received aid as a mission territory. The Brooklyn Diocese for its first 50 years benefited from that missionary collaboration.

I take this opportunity to thank Father John Brogan, director of the diocesan Office of the Propagation of the Faith and his staff for the wonderful work they do in our Diocese. Father Brogan represents us to the National Association of the Propagation of the Faith, he administers the mission collection which will be taken up on Sunday, and organizes the mission appeals by various missionaries who come to our Diocese directly seeking assistance.

Father Brogan also assists me in directing the work of the Society of the Immaculate Conception, which was established by Bishop Thomas V. Daily as the diocesan missionary society. As you may recall, Bishop Daily was a member of the St. James Society, which sent missionaries to Latin America, where he spent five years. In an effort to encourage our own missionary awareness, the Society of the Immaculate Conception exists to help our Diocese to provide an opportunity for our priests and seminarians to experience the missions. In the past, our diocesan priests staffed two parishes in the Dominican Republic. Almost every year since that time, a priest has spent some time there to be better prepared to return to the Diocese and serve the many Catholics coming to Brooklyn and Queens from there.

The Diocese of Brooklyn in the past has had a wonderful record of participating in the work of the Propagation of the Faith, but also we cannot forget our own mission in Paraguay, established under Bishop Francis Mugavero. Today, we can remember those who went on mission, Msgr. Celsus Collini and Father John Gildea, who also went to Santo Domingo for the same purpose. Most recently, we have released Father John Vesey to work with the Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers. He is on mission as one of their associates teaching English in China as a means of what we might call pre-evangelization.

As we look to the missionary situation of the Church in the world today, we recognize that the missions are also here in the Diocese of Brooklyn. We have been fortunate to host 130 international priests who assist us in our parishes, many of whom who are here to complete higher studies, but also who take up the slack in many of our parishes due to the shortage of priests. Still, the Holy See is cautious about attracting priests from mission territories to serve in established churches. Our international priests are always here with the permission of their local bishop, who wishes his priest either to study here at a local college or university or to have a different kind of pastoral experience.

Our care for international priests has taken some very positive steps in recent years, including establishing a special forum in which they can share their experiences and state their problems, as well as providing English classes and accent reduction classes. Msgr. Ronald Marino, Vicar for Migrant and Ethnic Apostolates, is my delegate for international priests. They are truly a concrete sign of our communion with the Church around the world and a present-day version of the ecclesial exchanges urged by Pope Pius XII some 50 years ago.

Sharing the gift of faith is what we are called to do as Catholic Christians. Faith is such a precious gift that we cannot keep it to ourselves. The Church must pursue its missionary vocation, and it is always a vocation to “put out into the deep,” since the missionary leaves what is known and comfortable and sets out to unknown territories and cultures in an effort to bring knowledge of God and His Son, Jesus Christ, to all who will listen.

Join me in prayer on Mission Sunday for the missionary Church around the world, that those who work in that vineyard may never become discouraged. May they always have the support of our prayers and sacrificial offerings.