World Mission Sunday

Please pray and give generously during the second collection in your parish on World Mission Sunday, October 17-18, 2020. Your offering of these spiritual and temporal resources will ensure that our brothers and sisters around the world will experience the joy and hope of the encounter with Christ through the missions.

A message from Pope Francis….

“ The celebration of World Mission Day is an occasion for reaffirming how prayer, reflection and the material help of your offerings are so many opportunities to participate actively in the mission of Jesus in his Church. The charity expressed in the collections that take place during the liturgical celebrations of the third Sunday of October is aimed at supporting the missionary work carried out in my name by the Pontifical Mission Societies, in order to meet the spiritual and material needs of peoples and Churches throughout the world, for the salvation of all.”

— Pope Francis, Message for World Mission Sunday 2020

YOU can be a Missionary!

Ancilla School Wa was founded as an early childhood educational center for 35 small children in 2010 by the Sisters of Handmaids of the Holy Child Jesus. Today, the school serves over 2000 children, from newborns to junior high school students. “Since March 15, schools in Ghana were asked to lockdown because of the pandemic,” report the Sisters, and “our children who were safe and nourished are suffering hunger and deprivation. The sisters have lost their source of livelihood and can no longer support them. We want to provide at least one nutritious meal for them. We need your assistance to support our ministry to vulnerable children during this pandemic.” Can you help?

To Help the Missions TODAY You Can:

Invite Sister to your parish!

Sr. Annai D’Souza is the mission coordinator for young people for the Archdiocese of Washington’s Missions Office. Sister welcomes the opportunity to visit with young people in schools, youth groups, Confirmation preparation, and CCD classes to share her witness about the essential missionary vocation of even the youngest Catholics. She is inspired by the words of St. John Paul II: “Missionary work has but one purpose: to serve man by revealing to him the love of God made manifest in Jesus Christ.” To arrange a visit with Sister, contact the ADW Missions Office, 301-853-4528.

Photo Above: Caring for the elderly in India

The men and women who serve as disciples of Jesus in mission lands have experienced an even more radical call this year to say, “here am I”, to the people and places in need of his redeeming Love. “The mission, the ‘Church on the move’, is not a program, an enterprise to be carried out by sheer force of will,” reminds Pope Francis in his World Mission Day message. “It is Christ who makes the Church go out of herself.” Will you answer Christ’s personal call to “go out” yourself during the pandemic, and help our brothers and sisters all over the world through your prayers, support and resources? Your ongoing support of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith is vital to the missionaries serving in 1,111 dioceses throughout Asia, Africa, parts of Latin America and Europe, and on the Islands of the Pacific. Your generosity helps local priests, religious, and catechists bring Christ’s saving life and love to communities, families and children in desperate need of the fullness of their humanity. Your World Mission Sunday gift may be used to provide Bibles for catechists in Pakistan, or build a new church in Mongolia. Your offering may be used to support a rural health clinic in Bolivia, or it may obtain a dairy cow for a children’s home in Cameroon. Most importantly, wherever your offering is sent, it brings your “yes” to the personal call of Christ, and therefore, your part in bringing His peace, hope and salvation through the ministry of the Church.

Photo Right: Nourishing people in Eritrea, Africa

Below is a list of some missionaries from Washington, DC who are either serving here at home in the United States or in a foreign mission.

FOREIGN MISSIONS

HOME MISSIONS