Dear St. Rita Families,

This Sunday is World Mission Sunday, and for us it is an opportunity to spend some time with God, His Providence, and His Salvific Will. Because, as you know, this is the ultimate purpose of mission work – to witness by word and action to God’s infinite Love, such that all might come to know His goodness! What better life could there be than one spent glorying in God’s infinite Love and sharing it with the world? It would mean that God has broken into your life, that you have known what it means to be loved by Him, that you have found joy in His presence, and that that Love is overflowing within you as “rivers of living water” (Jn 7:38), making itself manifest in your love for God and neighbor.

This missionary spirit is not a political agenda, even though it certainly has political implications. This missionary spirit transcends political parties and ideologies, because it preaches God’s Truth and Love to all who are part of those movements, forever calling them to conversion or deeper conversion, as the case may be. Likewise, the missionary spirit transcends cultures, and it desires to solidify and strengthen whatever is good in every culture across the world, since goodness itself is a transcendent reality. Thus, it does not pit one culture against another, but it serves as a beacon for all cultures, purifying what needs to be purified, excising what needs to be excised, affirming that which is good, true, and beautiful.

You have this missionary spirit! It has been given to you as a grace, not as something earned or deserved. God, in His Providence, has chosen you to go forth and “bear fruit, fruit that will last” (Jn 15:16). “Freely you have received; freely you must give” (Mt 10:8). You do not know God’s plan for each person you encounter. You only know that God has asked you to preach the Gospel. If they respond to you, thanks be to God! If not, you place them into the Heart of Jesus and entrust them to His Mercy. If they revile you, you forgive. If they persecute you, you rejoice. These are the means by which you share in God’s Salvific Will for all mankind – and for yourself!

You see, missionary work isn’t just for the sake of those who will hear the Word of God. It is also for the missionaries. St. Paul says it starkly: “Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel!” (1 Cor 9:16). St. Francis Xavier, one of the patron saints of missionaries (along with St. Therese of Lisieux), exclaims in one of his letters, “Again and again I have thought of going round the universities of Europe, especially Paris, and everywhere crying out like a madman, riveting the attention of those with more learning than charity, ‘What a tragedy: how many souls are being shut out of heaven and falling into hell, thanks to you!’” There is much grace lost for ourselves and for others if we fail to respond to God’s call. Preaching the Gospel not only unites us more deeply to the Charity that is the Heart of God, but it also makes God’s Charity manifest to others.

Charity is the measure of all things. Remember the words of St. Paul, “In the end, these three things remain: faith, hope, and love. And the greatest of these is love” (1 Cor 13:13). Thus, charity is our motivation for all things. God, who is Charity itself (cf. 1 Jn 4:16), has come down from Heaven as a Divine Missionary, entering into our culture, so to speak, by taking to Himself a human nature. He took all that is good to Himself, He rooted out what was evil, He healed what was broken and purified what was unclean. He is not only our model for missionary work, He is our strength, He is the Message Itself, the Word, He is Charity. 

In Christ,

Fr. Christensen