World Mission Sunday, celebrated this weekend in our diocesan parishes, gives us an opportunity to review our notion of mission on a diocesan, parish and personal level.
This Mission Sunday section (pages 15-18) provides information from the Society of the Propagation of Faith about missionary men and women around the world. The Society also features a weekly reminder in The Evangelist of the Church's ongoing missionary activity today throughout the globe.
In addition, I would like to share with you my some of my own personal reflections on the theme of mission.
Mission memories
My early recollections of the missions were formed at a young age when I attended Catholic school. The Religious sisters and brothers instilled in us a notion both of what mission meant and an ardent admiration for the missionaries who left behind home, mother, father, sisters and brothers, family and friends, and traveled to exotic and distant lands, such as China and Africa to carry the message of the Gospel to peoples there.
I can remember some of these religious holding a long, wooden, rubber-tipped pointer in hand, indicating on a large wall map where these exotic places were. Our imaginations were inflamed as we thought about the adventures and dangers these men and women might be facing in foreign lands. Occasionally, a picture of one of these missionaries was placed in our classroom serving as a reminder to pray and make sacrifices for them.
I can remember the very real excitement we felt in school when a missionary home for a visit would come to our classroom and relate their personal experiences of life in foreign mission lands. On those days, we felt that we were truly in the presence of giants of Faith.
Off to missions
Later on, I was very proud that two of my classmates from LaSalle Institute in Troy -- Jim Manning and Peter Barry -- went off to be missionary priests in Brazil and China respectively.
I am sure that many middle-aged and older Catholics grew up with a keen sense of "mission" and concern for children half a world away. Years ago, we raised funds for "pagan babies," cleaned our plates and prayed after Mass for the conversion of Russia. We didn't have global TV networks or the internet, but we had a sense of responsibility.
Over the years, we have continued this tradition through our missions, our collections for and advocacy on international needs, and our global development programs with the Society of the Propagation of The Faith and Catholic Relief Services.
Continuing work
While the theologies about mission have changed and developed since Vatican II, the importance of our baptismal call to be missionary-minded has not.
Today, the theology of mission is more dynamic, with an emphasis placed on solidarity with the poor. It implies a process of "accompaniment," a term that connotes journeying alongside people rather than in front of them. Accompaniment describes the position of those who come from outside a community, who voluntarily cast their lot with the struggling poor.
Lila Watson, an aboriginal woman from Australia, expresses it this way: "If you have come to help me, you can go home again. But if you see my struggles as a part of your own survival, then perhaps we can work together."
Justice
When the Latin American bishops met in Puebla for their General Conference in 1979 and, before that, in Medellin, Colombia, in 1968, the predominant experience of the Church there was poverty. As the bishops wrote in the earlier document from Medellin, "We cannot remain indifferent in the face of the tremendous social injustice existent in Latin America, which keeps the majority of our people in dismal poverty, which in many cases becomes inhuman wretchedness."
In that context, the bishops of Latin America were put in the unenviable position of having to assume the role of prophet. They needed to speak a word that expressed not only a commitment by Church leadership to the poor but also a commitment to walk with them in their struggles.
Those documents opened the eyes of those blind to the suffering of their brothers and sisters, and encouraged broader commitment to the poor among them. The bishops declared in a bold and prophetic way that the Church would make a "fundamental option for the poor."
Who are the poor?
As our theology of mission has developed, so has our understanding of "the poor." A common understanding of the poor is those who "have not" -- food, housing, clothing, work and culture. Those who have, it is said, should help them in their condition of poverty.
That approach, although filled with good will, can also carry hidden notions of paternalism and colonialism. The poor are not simply those who "have not"; they also have -- culture, and a capacity for work, collaboration, organization and struggle. The poor also witness to their power of resilience in adversity.
The poor should be agents of their own liberation, capable of self-determination and of solidarity with those who are not their like. The German theologian Jurgen Moltmann has observed: "Reading the Bible with the eyes of the poor is a different thing from reading it with a full belly."
Papal example
The leadership of Pope John Paul II has called us to a path of global responsibility and solidarity. In his encyclical "Centesimus Annus," he writes: "Sacred Scripture continually speaks to us of an active commitment to our neighbor and demands of us a shared responsibility for all of humanity. This duty is not limited to one's own family, nation or state, but extends progressively to all, so no one can consider himself/herself extraneous or indifferent to the lot of another member of the human family."
In my pastoral letter, "We Are God's Priestly People: A Vision for the Church of Albany for the 1990s," I wrote: "I have been searching for some tangible way to create a greater awareness of the fact that we are members of a global family and to give concrete expression to that awareness. An excellent way to do this, I think is to follow the example of other dioceses which have entered into a 'sister relationship' with a diocese from the Third World.
"I believe that such a venture would benefit our own Diocese immensely and would create among our people a greater sense of mission-mindedness and provide a better understanding of the pressing social issues of poverty and injustice which afflict millions on our neighbors in the southern half of our continent."
Connections
Two efforts were made in the past decade to link our Diocese with a sister diocese in Latin America. Unfortunately, due to sudden and uncertain political circumstances in each of the other dioceses, the efforts were put on hold.
More recently, however, a new attempt is being made through our diocesan "Pueblo to People Project of Accompaniment." The purpose of this project is to help our parishes find a link with parishes in Latin America. It is my hope that this project will result in a large network of parishes within our Diocese forging their own unique and individual relationships with our brothers and sisters in small communities of faith in Latin America.
I am very encouraged by the efforts of the committee working to promote the concept of global parish and sister parish partnerships. Members of the Pueblo To People Committee are willing to dialogue with pastors and parish councils or social concerns committees about their experiences and how to proceed with a discernment process in the parish.
Leading the way
Currently, three parishes within our Diocese are already linked with a sister parish: St. Bridget's, Copake Falls, with a parish in Nicaragua; St. Mary's, Crescent, with a parish in Guatemala; and Sacred Heart, Stamford, with a parish in Honduras. Four more parishes are currently in a process of discernment.
The Evangelist, in past issues, has narrated stories about the deep enrichment parishioners experience through their partnerships with faith communities from a different culture. By looking out beyond their own parish borders, they gain a new enrichment within their own parish by a deeper sense of community of faith and by a new awareness of international justice issues. A vital energy seems to infuse the whole parish community.
I am hopeful that the four parishes now discerning this process of accompaniment will be led by the Spirit to accept this mission challenge of solidarity with a sister parish in Latin America. Currently, there are more than 1,700 parishes in the United States with a sister parish and more than six dioceses are in a diocese-to-diocese relationship.
God's reign
All of this brings home the awareness that we are one people of God with different gifts, called to help bring about the reign of God on earth. The bonding together of parishes of different cultures breaks down the walls of isolationism, racism and xenophobia that are sometimes painfully evident in our human family.
Accompaniment can help us reflect on the nature of community, family and religion with people in a culture that is still rooted in those values.
The more that our Diocese stands in solidarity with the poor in Third World countries, the more we will be a prophetic sign of global harmony among the peoples of the earth sharing in and mutually concerned about each other's destiny. It is also in keeping with the call Pope John Paul, who, in talks and written documents, calls the Church "to embrace our brothers and sisters in different lands and cultures as members of the same household of faith." I would invite each parish to consider forming a partnership with a sister parish.
Distant place
Although I have not yet made my own pilgrimage to the "exotic and far-away lands" of the missionaries talked about in my early Catholic school formation, I still carry a desire to visit and experience first-hand some of the sacred places of the modern-day martyrs of Latin America for my own enrichment of faith.
I am still searching for some tangible way to create a greater awareness of the fact that we are members of a global family. It is my hope that more parishes will give concrete expression to that awareness through our Pueblo to People Project of Accompaniment.
(For information about Pueblo to People Project of Accompaniment, contact Rev. Rich Broderick at 664-8874 or email richaroo@nycap.rr.com.)