October we celebrate Mission Month

Each year the focus is put on mission during the month of October. In the past when we thought of mission we thought of the thousands of heroic Irish women and men who went all over the world giving of their time to work with people in spreading the Gospel. There are in excess of 1,000 Irish missionaries serving throughout the world. During the month of October, we celebrate the work of our missionaries, remembering them in our prayers and asking God's blessing on the good work that they do.

However, we have a wider sense of mission today. Pope Francis gives us the theme for World Mission Sunday on 22^nd October 2017, when he says, ‘Mission is at the heart of Christian Faith’. In his message for World Mission Sunday, he focuses on the need to gather round the person of Jesus and to heed his call to “proclaim the Gospel of the love of God the Father in the power of the Holy Spirit”. He also emphasises the Church’s role as being “missionary in nature” and that “young people are the hope of mission”.

Every Christian is a Missionary. Today every country is mission territory, every Christian, each one of us is called to witness to the joy of the Gospel in our families, in the factories and on the farm, in offices and schools and in the places where we socialise. Being a missionary in this sense can be as simple as an encouraging word, a smile, reaching out to a neighbour in need, being with people who grieve, encouraging or being patient with the young or the old. That is how the Gospel is spread. And for most of us that ‘home mission’ is the difficult challenge we face every day.

If you would like to be a missionary or wish to find out more about the Presentation Brothers, don't hesitate to drop me an email at: vocation@presentationbrothers.org.