World Mission Sunday: Are we in mission territory?

 

Today we have a recurring guest blogger:  Fr. Arthur F. Rojas, pastor of PRESENTATION OF THE B.V.M CHURCH, PORT EWEN AND SACRED HEART CHURCH, ESOPUS. For more information on this parish, check out their website at Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary & Sacred Heart Churches - Port Ewen - Esopus, NY (presentationsacredheart.org) 

Submission to the blog of Dcn. Thomas Tortorella for World Mission Sunday

by Rev. Fr. Arthur F. Rojas © All Rights Reserved, October 19, 2023 ©

World Mission Sunday: Are we in mission territory?

By Fr. Arthur F. Rojas © All rights reserved personally by Fr. Arthur F. Rojas, Oct. 19, 2023 ©

It seems to me that if and when most Catholics think about the missions, the missions are regarded for places far away in geography, socioeconomic development, and culture. Certainly, the second collections for the Church where she is materially poor in various areas of the world or even in certain communities of our vast country may foster that perception. When a cleric or religious brother/friar shares vignettes of missionary time abroad in his preaching at our churches, that sense may be reinforced. We may be led further by the long history of the Catholic Church in New York state, as reflected by the ultimate sacrifice made by the North American Martyrs at Auriesville centuries ago along with the contemporaneous life of St. Kateri Tekakwitha and further presence of saints such as Ss. John Neumann and Frances Xavier Cabrini, to say nothing of the remaining (and/or no longer present) Catholic institutions lining Route 9W in the mid-Hudson Valley, once called “Catholic Alley,” including the Redemptorists fondly remembered by many Catholics locally.

However, honesty requires us to look deeper. It is statistically evident that the pandemic and its aftereffects have diminished what was already a minority percentage of local Catholics – let alone Catholics in America – who attend Mass regularly on Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation, who seek the sacraments and other Catholic rites for themselves, their children, and even their practicing Catholic relatives such as baptisms, confessions, marriages, Anointings of the Sick, and funerals. Attitudes of certain parents show indifference or even resistance to requests by catechetical programs of their enrolled children to attend Sunday Mass regularly (already required by God in the Third Commandment) or to pursue homework and testing with equivalent diligence to their regular schooling. Finding godparents or sponsors who are practicing Catholics can become a challenge. Although the Catholic pro-life movement is enjoying a welcome revival in my county, there are self-identified Catholics who publicly flout the Church’s teachings on moral issues, including human life and God’s plan for the family. Although progress has been achieved locally, reluctance is perceptible to publicly showing, sharing, or defending our Catholic faith, whilst societal actors locally and nationally mold the imagination and attitudes of our youth and even mature Catholics in ways that contravene the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

The evidence abounds that the Empire State and the Big Apple need reclaiming for Christ, starting with ourselves. Although we are blessed with help from abroad with our clerics ministering locally and we should support the Church’s missionary efforts abroad, the American saying “Charity begins at home” makes demands of us local Catholics. The spread of the True Faith abroad that we support with prayers and offerings also needs to be spread here with time, talent, and if need be, treasure. There is not so much need for programs as there is need for us to get out of our comfort zones, starting with our families and neighbors who are no longer practicing Catholics, to invite them to our churches, to share the good things happening at our parishes and groups, to raise the possibility of priestly, diaconal, and religious/monastic vocations to our children and youths, and to reach out also to those of no faith or other faiths with the beauty and truth of our lived Catholic identity as something not only good for us but as something also good for them. One small way is to pass your bulletin to someone else when you are finished reading it. May our charity for the well-being in body and soul of our relatives and neighbors reach home as well as abroad, starting this World Mission Sunday.