Homily for Mission Sunday

Homily for Mission Sunday

Oct. 19, 2025
Matt 28: 16-20[1]
2 Tim 3: 14—4: 2[2]
St. Francis Xavier, Bronx
Our Lady of the Assumption, Bronx

“Jesus said to them, ‘Go and make disciples of all nations’” (Matt 28: 19).

Since today is Mission Sunday thruout the Catholic world, it’s fitting that we consider the mandate that Jesus gives us to preach his Good News everywhere, to everyone.

God the Father sent his Son into the world in order to share divine love with men and women.  The Son was a missionary.  It was his mission to restore the divine image in us by cleansing us of sin, which mars that image like a big smudge on a mirror.

The Son, our Lord Jesus, established the Church, the assembly of his disciples, to carry on his mission of cleansing and restoration.  So Jesus, as he left this world physically after his resurrection, gave his apostles the great commission:  Go into the whole world and make disciples.  Go and teach everyone until the end of time that God loves them and wants them to live with him for eternity, sharing in his own life.  The Church is commissioned to make disciples by sharing God’s life and love.

Today Pope Leo canonized 3 women and 4 men who had already been approved for that by Pope Francis, declaring them saints, images of God’s love for humanity and models of holiness for us to admire, imitate, and pray to.  The group includes with 2 martyrs, 3 laypeople, 3 nuns, a bishop, and 2 missionaries.

I’ll present to you the missionaries, a man and a woman who carried out Jesus’ great commission to make disciples in 2 of the many nations whom God loves and wants to save thru Jesus Christ.

The man is St. Peter To Rot, a native of the country we now call Papua New Guinea.  He’s the 1st canonized saint from that part of the world.  Born into a Catholic family in 1912, he married and had children.  He became a catechist, helping missionaries instruct the faithful in various villages and practicing charity, humility, and care for the poor.

During World War II, the Japanese occupied most of New Guinea and interred the missionaries.  That left pastoral care to the catechists even tho the Japanese forbade it.  Peter continued to catechize, bring the Eucharist to people, and prepare couples for marriage.  Polygamy was commonly practiced, and when Peter told his brother he couldn’t take a 2d wife, his brother betrayed him to the Japanese.  He was arrested, imprisoned, and then executed by lethal injection in 1945.  St. John Paul II beatified him in Papua New Guinea in 1995 as a martyr for the faith.  He had lived what St. Paul told Timothy in today’s 2d reading:  “Remain faithful to what you have learned and believed. . . .  Proclaim the word, be persistent whether it’s convenient or inconvenient, convince, reprimand, and encourage thru all patience and teaching” (2 Tim 3:14, 4:2).

The woman I present is St. Maria Troncatti, who isn’t a martyr, strictly speaking, but who did give her long life totally to the people where she lived as a missionary.  Like St. Peter To Rot and like St. Paul the Apostle, she “proclaimed the word, was persistent whether it was convenient or inconvenient, convinced, and encouraged thru all patience and teaching.”

St. Maria was born in northern Italy in 1883 and became a Salesian sister in 1908. During World War I, she served as a nurse.  In 1922 her Salesian superiors sent her to Ecuador as a missionary in the country’s eastern region, in the Amazon jungle.  She never returned to her homeland but bestowed all her love and care upon the native people of her new home, and on the European-descended settlers who came there seeking land and resources.  She was catechist, nurse, dentist, doctor, even surgeon.  She promoted the dignity of women and of family life.  She visited the villages by horseback or canoe.  Everyone knew her as madrecita, “little mother.”

Amid constant tensions between the settlers and the Indians, she was a friend and helper to all and tried to keep the peace.  The tension got so bad that in July 1969 the settlers burned down the residence of the Salesian priests and brothers, and the natives were ready to retaliate violently.  Sr. Maria offered her life to God so that peace would be restored.

God accepted Sr. Maria’s offer the following month.  She boarded a plane for Quito for her annual retreat with about a dozen other people.  The plane crashed on takeoff, but everyone survived except Sr. Maria.  Amid the tears at her funeral, natives and whites made peace; that was called her 1st miracle.

Sr. Maria was beatified in Ecuador in 2012 with the approval of Pope Benedict.  Now she’s St. Maria, religious sister, missionary, and madrecita of everyone.

You and I aren’t missionaries to foreign lands or catechists roving from village to village (altho I rove between Westchester County and the Bronx).  But all disciples of Jesus are missionary disciples, Pope Francis said often.  We're all commissioned to preach the Gospel—by how we live among our families, friends, co-workers, and neighbors, and by praying for those who are actually out in the missions of Latin America, Africa, the Indian subcontinent, and the Far East.  Perhaps we’re also in a position to offer some material assistance in today’s special collection.

---

[1] Gospel for the Ascension, Year A.

[2] 2d reading for 29th Sunday, Year C.