Homily for Mission
Sunday
29th Sunday of Ordinary
Time
Oct. 18, 2020
Ps 96: 1, 3-5, 7-10
Is 45: 1, 4-6
St. Pius X, Scarsdale,
N.Y.[1]
“Sing to the Lord a new song; sing to the
Lord, all you lands” (Ps 96: 1).
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| Salesian sisters' choir at profession Mass, 2012 |
We observe World Mission Sunday this weekend, calling upon all the peoples of the world to sing the praises of the Lord God, to “tell his glory among the nations” (96:3).
Psalm 96, like all the psalms, originated
among God’s chosen people—this particular psalm, apparently in the years after
the Jews’ restoration to their land and to their holy city, Jerusalem, thru the
graciousness of the Persian ruler Cyrus, “whose hand” the Lord “grasped and
subdued nations before him … so that toward the rising and the setting of the
sun people may know that there is no other” than the God of Israel, no other
who rules the earth and orders all things according to his own mind and his own
plan (Is 45:1,6).
That the Lord’s holy name should be
recognized and honored from one end of the earth to the other, from the rising
of the sun to its setting, is the mission of Israel; and since the coming of
Israel’s Messiah, our Lord Jesus Christ, is the mission of his
people. As Pope Francis says in his
message for this year’s Mission Sunday, we are all on mission in the world. “This missionary mandate touches us
personally,” Francis says. “I am a
mission, always; you are a mission, always; every baptized man and woman is a
mission.”
We begin to fulfill that mission by “singing
to the Lord a new song,” singing of the salvation that he’s wrought for us thru
the death and resurrection of Jesus. The
Church proclaims thruout the world that Jesus is our savior, that he forgives
our sins, that he calls us to eternal life alongside himself in his Father’s
kingdom. We proclaim this when we
celebrate the Eucharist and in our teaching and preaching whenever we have the
opportunity to do so. We proclaim this
when we live in the manner that Jesus teaches us, by “shining like lights in
the world as [we] hold onto the word of life” (Alleluia verse) and by living as
faithful citizens in our public lives and faithful adherents to God’s
law—paying to Caesar what’s his and God what’s his (cf. Matt 22:21).
The Church is on mission in the world. So, while we begin our worship “to give the
Lord glory and praise” and “the glory due his name,” and to “bring gifts and
enter his” temple (Ps 96:7-8), we’re also commanded to proclaim the Lord’s
glory and the salvation of Jesus to the wider world, “among all peoples.” There are some ways in which we can do that.
The 1st way is by prayer, by praying for the
Gospel to be spread, “that Christ’s saving work may continue to the end of the
ages,” praying “that from all the peoples on earth one family and one people of
[God’s] own may arise and increase,” as we pray this morning. Let this prayer not be only an annual
concern, on Mission Sunday, but a regular part of our prayer, that missionaries
may effectively make Christ known and loved, and that the hearts of people who
don’t know Christ may be moved by grace to welcome his word and to believe; that
he be known and believed on college campuses, on social media, in the world of science
and technology, in political life, in the arts.
The 2d way is by giving material support to
missionary efforts, whether the so-called “home missions” or the foreign
missions; in places where the Gospel once flourished, such as the nations of
Europe, North America, and Australia, which have largely become mission
territory again, and in places where the seed of the Gospel is still trying to
plant itself for the 1st time, in Africa, Asia, and the Amazon.
The 3d way is by becoming missionaries or by
encouraging others to become missionaries.
On Friday, the pandemic notwithstanding, the Salesians gave the missionary
cross (in a virtual rite) to 4 young men and women who will be Salesian Lay
Missioners this year in Bolivia, Papua New Guinea, and a home mission. The Holy Father reminds us, “Today too, the
Church needs men and women who, by virtue of their Baptism, respond generously
to the call to leave behind home, family, country, language, and local Church,
and to be sent forth to the nations, to a world not yet transformed by the
sacraments of Jesus Christ and his holy Church.” Such missionaries do what the psalmist
urges: “Say among the nations: The Lord
is king, he governs the peoples fairly and justly” (96:10).
May we faithfully do that right in our own home, among our own families.
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