Fil-Mission Sunday

As we remember today the offering of self for our Filipino missionaries, we must be awakened in our calling to do our share of the mission, and concretely support our missionaries through our prayers and financial support. In the past, we were benefactors of foreign missionaries. But now we have taken the challenge of sending Filipinos abroad, such as in Japan, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and the like, to draw out Christ from people who do not yet know the Lord.

Every time we end the Holy Mass, we are sent to mission. During the International Eucharistic Congress held in Cebu in 2016, Cardinal Bo said that, “the Eucharist of the devotee ends in the beautifully decorated altars, but the Eucharist of the missionary makes the street as their altar.” This reminds us: of Saint Teresa of Calcutta who took the trouble of caring for the poor to let them feel the love of Christ; of St. Francis Xavier who taught and baptized children who cannot yet even recognize their left hand from their right; of St. Therese of the Child Jesus whose faithfulness to every task given to her lived in spending heaven by doing good here on earth.

As baptized, we share in the threefold mission of Christ in teaching, praying and serving. We must feel the privilege of this mission and not consider it as a burden in our status in life, in office or at home, in work or in leisure, in season and out of season.