October is Mission Month—a time to remember that mission is not a task reserved for a select few, but the vocation of every baptised person. The key lies in this phrase from the Pope: the more closely we are united with the Lord, the more faithful we will be to the mission He entrusts to us.
Our being missionaries does not arise from our own strength or strategies. It is nourished and enriched through union with Christ. Without Him, mission becomes activism; with Him, it becomes witness.
Where can we encounter Him? In His Word, which guides and directs us each day. By reading and meditating on it, we come to know Christ in the way He thinks and acts: how He looked at people, how He listened, how He forgave and how He served. Let us allow this Word, with its power and strength, to transform us and shape us into true missionaries, capable of saying through our words, but above all through our lives, that God loves us.
And we do not do this alone. We are invited to walk this journey together, as the Church and as a community: supporting one another in prayer, sharing our faith and reaching out to others. Union with Christ and unity among ourselves grow together, and from this a credible mission is born.
During this Mission Month
Set aside a few minutes each day for the Word of God.
Pray for missionaries—women and men—throughout the world.
Offer someone in your community a concrete gesture of closeness and love.
Lord, unite us with You and with one another, so that our lives may proclaim that God loves us. Amen.
United with Christ, Missionaries on the Journey
