Mission Sunday
This weekend we mark Mission Sunday. The traditional view has been that Mission Sunday was a day to acknowledge the work of the men and women of faith who had travelled to the four corners of the globe to take the Gospel to people who as yet did not know Christ. Here in New Zealand, we would not know of the saving power of the Gospel without such Missionaries. I grew up in Rotorua, where missionary priests from the Mill Hill order lived and worked amongst our community. From the 1880’s the Mill Hill community from Ireland and the Netherlands sent their priests to New Zealand to undertake work initially in the Māori mission. Then from Matatā and Maketu they established themselves throughout the Bay of Plenty and into Taupō. They continued to work for the Catholic community for over 140 years. For me, Frs McKenna and Timmerman were part of my day-to-day life, at church and school. We did not see them as missionary priests. They were our priests. They had left their homes in Ireland and the Netherlands to travel halfway across the world to share their love of the gospel with us and they were an essential part of our Catholic life. Neither returned to his homeland and they built their lives around their work in our local community. We owe a debt of gratitude to these and other men and women who travelled so far because of their love of the gospel.
But this is only one side of Mission Sunday. We are all called to be Missionary disciples of Christ. As Christians each of us is to be a witness to the Gospel within the context of our day to day lives. So, we do not need to leave home and family and travel to far lands to be a witness to the love and certainty of a life lived in Christ but can be a witness to the love of Christ within our own home, family, workplace and community. This year Pope Francis has given us as the theme for World Mission Day the parable of the wedding banquet (Matthew 22: 1-14). With the invited guests refusing the invitation to the wedding banquet, the King instructs his servants to go out to the streets and invite those they find to come to the wedding feast. The words of the gospel are to ‘Go and invite’. This message is for all of us, not just those who are called to live a different life in a faraway land. So, we need to heed the call to go forth and invite those around us to share the joy we have in the wedding feast – our love of the gospel.
Jane Kelly
