10/23/2011 – homily for 30th Sunday of ordinary time – World Mission Sunday – Exodus 22:20-26, Matthew 22:34-40

         On the second to the last Sunday in October each year, our Church celebrates World Mission Sunday, recognizing our call to bring the Good News of our Savior, Jesus Christ, to all the world.  The theme for World Mission Sunday this year is “Celebrate the Hope that Saves.”  And that hope for us is Jesus, the salvation we receive through him.

         World Mission Sunday ties into the message that we hear in all of our readings today, the message that God is love in the midst of all of the brokenness in the world around us. That love should be at the center of how we see God interacting in our lives.  That love is a call to see ourselves as missionaries as an essential part of our identity as followers of Christ.  In the Exodus story that we hear today, as the Israelites are escaping the bondage and oppression of their lives in Egypt, as they travel to the promised land, Moses presents God’s law to the people.  The laws of conduct that God gives them at Mount Sinai are reiterated again and again by the prophets as the people repeatedly stray from God and turn their back on him throughout the history of the people of Israel.

         The widows, the orphans, the poor, the oppressed, the stranger – they were the most vulnerable and the most at risk in the ancient Mediterranean world.  Today, in our world and in our own community right here in Yazoo City, we may think that we can easily identify these members who are most at risk, who are orphans and the strangers.  But some individuals may feel like they are orphans or strangers in their own community and they are not so readily identifiable.  What we see on the outside and on the surface can be so different from the reality that is going on inside a person.  We may see someone who appears happy and content, confident and successful in life, but inside they may be struggling just to make it from one day to the next, they may be insecure and lacking in self-worth and confidence. 

         God tells the people of Israel that if they do wrong against those who are most vulnerable in their society, those they’ve wronged will cry out to God, and God will surely hear their cry.  God’s wrath will flare up at the people of Israel, and the Israelites themselves will become widows and orphans.  The point of all of this is not to instill fear in our hearts, to make us afraid of God, but rather it is a call to awareness, to look at how we treat others, especially the least among us in our society.  And since it is often so difficult to determine who the least among us are, we are to be watchful in how we treat all of God’s children.

        We here in the Diocese of Jackson live in a mission diocese where we Catholics are just a small part of the population. In fact, we have one of the lowest percentages of Catholics of any diocese in the US.  For years, priests and sisters came from Ireland or from the North of the United States to help plant the seeds of the Catholic faith here in Mississippi.  The Society for the Propagation for the Faith had its first collection to fund missionary activity in our Church way back in 1822.  At that time, 2/3 of the funds came to the United States, primarily from the Church in Europe.  Our present day circumstances are very different, with the Catholic Church firmly established in our country.  Yet, we here in the Diocese of Jackson are still a mission diocese, one of over 1,100 such dioceses throughout the world.  As I travel as a part of my ministry throughout Yazoo and Humphreys counties and to the Jackson area, I am very aware of how missionary we still are here in Mississippi.

         So as we celebrate World Mission Sunday today, just how do we respond to God’s call to mission, to reach out to our brothers not only in our own community, but also beyond, especially in light of the commandment to love, to love God and to love our neighbor?  In reflecting upon God’s love and our call to be missionary, Pope Benedict instructs us that through our co-responsible participation in the Church’s mission, we as followers of Christ become builders of the communion, peace, and solidarity that Christ brings to our world.  Through our mission call, we help bring God’s plan of salvation to all of humanity.  With God’s love as an example to us all, we live out our Christian vocation in bringing Christ’s Gospel to the world.

        Since the days of the early Church, when Peter, Paul, and the other disciples traveled near and far to spread Christ’s message, the Church has seen the missionaries as models of faith for all of us.  Just this past month we’ve celebrated saints such as St Teresa of Avila, who worked to bring about reforms in 16^th century Spain; Jean de Brebeuf, who gave up his in order to bring God’s word to the native people of 17^th century Canada; and St Francis of Assisi, who came out of 13^th century Italy to help all of us expand our view of God, to see him in nature and in all of creation.   All of these saints were missionaries in the reality of their world, using the gifts, talents, and interests that God had given them, being true to themselves and true to the way God called out to them in life.  We also are called to be missionaries in our own way.  And we are called to do this in our own community and to others in this wonderful world we are in.  We can never forget that all of us are called to be missionaries as part of our discipleship in Christ.