When I was working as as a lay missionary in Ecuador prior to becoming a priest, I hosted a group of high school students from Cincinnati, Ohio for a two week long mission experience. In this jungle province of Esmeraldas, Ecuador, there were more than 100 missionaries doing many different kinds of ministry in parishes, schools, health clinics, orphanages, and community centers. I had arranged for a canoe to bring the youth and their leaders to a village where I did a lot of work as a missionary. The canoe ride was 4 hours away from the main mission site. As the two canoes was speeding down the huge river that was about as wide as the Mississippi River, with the immense rain forest jungle all around us, one of the high school students in the canoe turned to me and said: “I feel like we’ve been transported to the pages of National Geographic Magazine!” Many Catholics see this mission field in this same way: an exotic location in a foreign land thousands of miles. However, in recent years, the Church has been educating the faithful with the reality that whole world is the mission field for us, that all of us are called to be missionary in spirit as disciples of Christ.
Today, we celebrate World Mission Sunday, which was first declared by Pope Pius XI and the Pontifical Society for the Propagation for the Faith back in 1926, almost 100 years a go. The mission world has changed dramatically since then. Back then, many of the priests in our Diocese came from Ireland. Now, with just one active non-retired priest from Ireland, Father Gerry Hurley, we have priests from places like Africa, India, Vietnam, Mexico, and Guatemala, places that used to be thought of as the mission field. We are working hard to cultivate home-grown priests from Mississippi to provide the priests we need here in the Diocese of Jackson.
Pope Francis’ message for World Mission Sunday this year reflects on the theme: “We cannot but speak about what we have seen and heard” (Acts 4:20). The Pope reminds us that, “as Christians, we cannot keep the Lord to ourselves,” as we “recall with gratitude all those men and women who by their testimony of life help us to renew our baptismal commitment to be generous and joyful apostles of the Gospel.”
Humility is the common theme in our readings today. Humility plays an important role in how we pray to God, in how we live as disciples in how we bring Christ’s Good News to the world as missionaries of his Good News. In today’s parable, what the self-righteous Pharisee said is not really a prayer to God. Instead of thanking God, he brags about himself. In fact, he really says this prayer to himself. The Pharisee looks down at others, labeling them “sinners”. The Pharisee does a lot of good things in his life, but he is arrogant and proud. God calls us to humility and compassion toward our brothers and sisters, very different from the Pharisee’s attitude.
In contrast, the tax collector stands at the back of the Temple, rather than assuming a position of power and honor up in front. He is so humble that he will not even lift up his eyes to God. He confesses his sins and asks for forgiveness, praying from his heart. The tax collector has done many bad things in his life, but he possesses the virtue of humility, leading him to repent and to ask forgiveness from God, the merciful Father. The Pharisee prays thinking he does not need God’s forgiveness, but the tax collector prays knowing that he needs forgiveness; he receives that forgiveness from God. How do we approach prayer? Out of our pride and power and self-righteousness? Or out of our humility and obedience?
According to the 19th century existentialist philosopher Soren Kierkegaard, “Prayer does not change God, but (prayer) changes him who prays.” And according to scripture scholar Father Raymond Brown from University of Notre Dame, “If no change occurs as a result of prayer, then one has not really prayed.” Out of our humility and repentance, like that which was shown by the tax collector in today’s Gospel, we can be open to change and transformation in our prayer life. The tax collector surrenders himself to God’s grace in his humility and openness. The Pharisee thinks he had all the answers; God’s grace has no room in his life. The spirit of today’s Gospel, of humility, repentance, and faith, can be found in the prayers in the Chaplet of the Divine Mercy: “Eternal Father, I offer You the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity, of your dearly beloved Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, in atonement for our sins and those of the whole world. For the sake of his sorrowful passion, have mercy on us, and on the whole world.”
As we celebrate the universal call we have to be missionary, we acknowledge how that call begins on the parish level. We want all of you to be a part of our mission here at Holy Savior and Immaculate Conception. As we reach out to our fellow parishioners, our children, our youth, and our young adults, as we reach out to the community and beyond, all of us can be a part of this missionary mandate. That is one of goals here at our parishes - to fulfill this call to be a missionaries in the world.
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