World Mission Sunday

Homily for the Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time

World Mission Sunday

October 19, 2025
St. Martin de Porres Catholic Church
Prosper, Texas

Exodus 17:8-13
Psalm 121:1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8
2 Timothy 3:14-4:2
Luke 18:1-8

In 1926 Pope Pius XI decreed that each year on the penultimate Sunday of October, the Church would keep a day dedicated to World Missions to remind all Catholics of our shared responsibility to promote the spread of the authentic Gospel in every conceivable way. We can and should support missionary work with our financial gifts, but even more we must seek to live as faithful disciples and loving friends of the Lord Jesus and so bear witness to everyone we meet that Jesus Christ is Lord.

Homily for World Mission Sunday

October 20, 2024
St. Joseph Catholic Church
Arlington, Texas

Isaiah 53:10-11
Psalm 33:4-5, 18-19, 20, 22
Hebrews 4:14-16
Mark 10:35-45

Isaac Jogues, Rene Goupil, Jean de Lalande, Antoine Daniel, John de Brebeuf, Gabriel Lalemant, Charles Garnier, and Noel Chabanel: these are the names of the North American Martyrs whose feast we celebrated yesterday. Saint Isaac Jogues was a man of clear resolve in his love for Christ. He wrote his religious superior, ‘Yes, Father, I want whatever the Lord wants, even if it costs a thousand lives.” It was the gift of fortitude that brought him and the other martyrs to clarity.

Homily for the Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time

October 17, 2022
Saint Stephen Catholic Church
Weatherford, TX

Exodus 17:8-13
Psalm 121:1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8
2 Timothy 3:14-4:2
Luke 18:1-8

Today we gather in communion to pray as God’s people and to mark World Mission Sunday to ask God for His gifts of missionary conversion, prayer, and concrete expressions of charity. In his annual message to the Pontifical Mission societies, Pope Francis highlights these three elements of the Holy Spirit’s grace, missionary conversion, prayer, and concrete works of charity as the great contributions to the spread of the Gospel since the coming of the Holy Spirit upon the Church at Pentecost.