MISSION SUNDAY

Mt 28, 16-20



“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations.”
Jesus sends his disciples on a mission that is exactly continuous with his own. A missionary is one who has been sent, sent ultimately by God, like an ambassador or an envoy, who represents his president or king from whom he brings a message, usually of good will. The sender is more important and original than the one sent. The missionaries had great qualities, not some superficial etiquette or surface cordiality. They were giants of the faith, with profound dedication to service and sacrifice. These virtues plunged the missionaries into all kinds of activities and undertakings on behalf of the people with whom they had cast their lot. A missionary is nothing if he or she does not personify Christ. Only a missionary who copies Christ faithfully can reproduce his image in others. An apostle’s life is a tale of friendship with the Lord.
The Church’s mission without frontiers has always had and continues to have the characteristic seal of martyrdom. This is the brave witness to Christ’s paschal mystery. To quote Pope John Paul II, “The celebration of the Jubilee Year 2000 cannot ignore the fact that in our own century the martyrs have returned, many of them nameless, ‘unknown soldiers’ of God’s cause” (TMA 37). “Throughout Christian history, martyrs, that is, ‘witnesses’, have always been numerous and indispensable to the spread of the Gospel” (RM, 45). Martyrdom is solemn proclamation and missionary commitment (VS 93). “It has become the common heritage of all Christians.” Those were the words of the Holy Father, and how true for our own country, where witnessing to the faith is fraught with the risk of physical assault and even death.
Over the years, the missionary tradition of the Church has written wonderful pages of history. Today there are also many missionaries, priests and lay persons, who can consecrate their life to the cause of the Gospel and human development, giving themselves to the poorest, in often difficult and dangerous situations, who are sometimes called to give the supreme witness of martyrdom. The Holy Father salutes all heralds of the Gospel, “especially those who suffer persecution for the name of Christ” (AG 42).
The missionary attitude of not putting any conditions on the proclamation of the Gospel is truly a martyr’s attitude. A missionary’s zeal cannot be dampened by difficulties nor motivated by personal interests and preferences. Mission often demands heroic virtue, courage, perseverance, and unlimited patience when the immediate results cannot be seen, or the work simply collapses.  The unexpected happenings of missionary life cause suffering, but they are fruitful. The missionary has no hero complexes. St. Therese of Lisieux said in her last conversations, “If I were to die at 80 years of age and had been in China and everywhere, I am sure that I would die as small as I am.” To live and die in God’s surprise is the most simple, joyful, and fruitful martyrdom.
My dear friends, you need not have great suffering, only the small thorns of daily life, the unexpected setbacks and irritants. St. Therese said, “Do not lose any of the thorns you find each day. With one of them you can save a soul “ (Letter 72 to Marie Guerin). “Let us not reject the smallest sacrifice. Picking up a pin for love can convert a soul. What a mystery!” (Letter 142 to Leonia).
Let me ask you a riddle. What is 750,000 miles long, reaches round the earth 30 times, and grows 20 miles longer each day? Answer: the line of people without Christ. The answer to the riddle is shot with urgency. We baptised Christians form one Catholic Church. The specific nature of this Church is missionary, otherwise it is an empty grouping of individuals or an afternoon tea party.
The modern world accepts certain values, at least in theory: the equality of all men and women, the dignity of the person; while technology makes it possible to roll back the frontiers of pain and disease. This is an integral part of the mission of the covenant people that we are. A broken family cannot restore individual dignity; a covenantal family can. It is with a mission that we are in the world. You and I must personify Jesus Christ. As a certain missionary has said, “If Coca Cola can put a can of Coke on every table, we can put Jesus in every heart.”
God sends missionaries. But who sends God? (“Don’t act chirpy”, I hear you say). All right, then I’ll answer that myself. God sends himself. Perhaps I put it light-heartedly. Then can I put it in a learned way? How would you like it if I say: God writes his mystery into our history. God pours himself into the daily life of his children.  Without loss of his divinity he immerses himself into the human humdrum. As the great St. Teresa of Avila declared: “God walks amidst the pots and pans of the kitchen.” God is personally involved and personally forms his people in terms of his values, writing his mystery into his people’s history. What could be more personal and intimate than the Incarnation? “God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the Law.”
If missionary means one who is sent, then Jesus Christ is the missionary “par excellence”. Jesus Christ is no gaunt shadowy figure flitting across our path. The Incarnation is no idyllic pie in the sky, but down to earth, meaning what it has always meant: hard as nails, jostling and shoving humanity, dirty, smelly, bloody and painful. That’s where you’ll find the Son of God, very determinedly writing God’s mystery into our history. In the Word made flesh, not only Spirit speaks to spirit, but Flesh speaks to flesh. Our flesh has ceased to be an obstacle; it has become a means and a mediation. The flesh has ceased being a veil to become a perception.
“As the Father has sent me, and I love the Father, so do I send you,” says Jesus to everyone here. Love is the key to mission. We cannot see God, so we love our neighbour, and share with them our most precious possession: the Christian Faith.


PRAYER (Bishop C. K. McKenzie of the United Society of the Propagation of the Gospel) I am weary of the dark voices crying doom;
I am weary of the fearful voices crying only for their nation;
I am weary of the disinherited voices crying in hopelessness;
let my voice sing the laughter of God;
let my voice sing good news to the poor;
let my voice sing restitution of the oppressed;
let my voice sing healing of the violated;
let my voice sing the return of the displaced;
let my voice be the laughter of God. Amen.