Homily for Mission Sunday

Homily for the
30th Sunday of Ordinary Time
Mission Sunday

Oct. 24, 2021
Ps 126: 1-6
Mark 10: 46-52
St. Joseph Church, New Rochelle, N.Y.
Our Lady of the Assumption, Bronx
Holy Name of Jesus, New Rochelle                    

“Then they said among the nations, ‘The Lord has done great things for them’” (Ps 126: 2).

This weekend the Church around the world celebrates Mission Sunday.  This annual observance reminds us that the Church is fundamentally missionary.  The Church was created by our Lord Jesus to carry on his mission until the end of time, his mission of announcing God’s love to people everywhere.  Our Lord Jesus wants the whole world to exclaim, as the psalmist did, “The Lord has done great things for them.”

The prophet Jeremiah preached in the name of the Lord, “Shout with joy for Jacob, exult at the head of the nations; proclaim your praise and say:  The Lord has delivered his people” (31:7).  The psalmist sang of Israel’s deliverance from bondage, testifying of God’s work to the whole world.  St. Mark wrote about Jesus’ public ministry, passion, and resurrection so that generation after generation of believers would know that they might be saved by faith in Jesus, like the blind beggar who appealed to Jesus at Jericho (Mark 10:46-52).

The 2d Vatican Council reminded all Christians that the Church is missionary, charged to proclaim salvation thru Jesus Christ.  Pope Francis tells us all that we are to be missionary disciples.

In the gospel story today there are 2 kinds of disciples.  The 1st kind is the one who shouts out, “Jesus, son of David, have pity on me” (10:47).  He wants Jesus and everyone else to hear him.  He calls Jesus his “master” (10:51), and he follows Jesus on his way to Jerusalem, to his passion, death, and resurrection for the redemption of the world.  The 2d type of disciple is the type that tries to shush the blind man, “telling him to be silent” (10:48).  They don’t want any public disruption.

Missionary disciples not only follow Jesus and carry their crosses with him in hope of rising with him; but they also proclaim who Jesus is.  They want the world to know that he’s the son of David, the messiah, the Savior.  They are Jesus’ real disciples, those who have learned from him—which is what “disciple” means.

How are we to be missionary disciples?  How are we to say among the nations, “The Lord has done great things for” us?  Certainly we don’t have to wade into crowds like Bartimaeus and shout out, “Jesus is the son of David” and he saves us.  No, we don’t have to make a scene, as it were.

Neither can we be silent.  The Chinese government wants Christians to be silent and just follow the Communist Party rules.  There are elements in American society who want to shush us:  they’ll let us pray as we wish in church, but not bring our beliefs or our consciences into public practice, e.g., by proclaiming that unborn human beings have a right to life, that people of any race, nationality, or religion have God-given dignity, that homosexual activity is unnatural and immoral, that transgenderism is a lie, that people fleeing hunger, persecution, and violence deserve refuge, that making money doesn’t justify the destruction of the environment.

For parents, speaking up begins with evangelizing your children:  teaching them to pray and teaching them what we believe as Catholic Christians and how we are to act as disciples of Jesus.  If your children are in public school, pay attention to what they’re being taught in school.  In many places, our children are being indoctrinated to approve of LGBTQ policies, abortion rights, and sexual activity without responsibility or consequences.  Parents have the right to object and to insist that they, and not school boards or teachers, will teach their children what’s right and wrong.

Most of us can’t go out to the nations of the world as missionaries.  But some of us may be called by Jesus to do that.  For example, the Jesuits and the Franciscans, among others, offer opportunities for missionary experiences for one or two years on Indian reservations or in Appalachia as well as overseas.  The Salesians have a thriving lay missionary program that allows volunteers to serve in such places as Bolivia, Cambodia, South Sudan, Papua New Guinea, and Vietnam.

The one thing all of us can do is pray for missionaries and the people to whom they bring the Good News of Jesus.  I commend to you, particularly, the 5 Salesian lay missioners who were commissioned and sent out as missionary disciples this summer:  Hannah Mercado from California, Grace Mosher from Connecticut, and Olivia Wyles from Ohio, who’ve gone to care for orphan girls in Bolivia; John Funk from California, who’s gone to Sierra Leone; and Theresa Hoang from Virginia, who’s gone to South Sudan.

May God bless you and enable you at all times to call upon Jesus as your master, to have active faith in him so that he will save you.