On World Mission Sunday, we look to the example of Blessed Fulton Sheen to remember our obligation to the Church throughout the world
Just three weeks ago, the Church in St. Louis had the extraordinary privilege of welcoming Catholics from across the country to celebrate the beatification of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen.
It was a moment of tremendous joy for the Church in the United States — and a particular honor for our local Church.
But the beatification of a holy man or woman is never intended simply to give us another person to admire. The Church raises up the blessed and the saints so that their witness might challenge us to follow Christ more faithfully.
For us in St. Louis, that challenge comes quickly.
On Oct. 18, Catholics throughout the world will celebrate the 100th anniversary of World Mission Sunday, the annual day of prayer and giving for the missionary work of the Church. Few Americans did more to awaken Catholics to that responsibility than Blessed Fulton J. Sheen.
Yet here in St. Louis, our connection to this missionary story reaches back even further.
Long before World Mission Sunday was established, the young Church in this part of the United States benefited from the generosity of Catholics elsewhere through the Society for the Propagation of the Faith. Missionary assistance helped support the Old Cathedral, the Vincentian seminary of St. Mary of the Barrens in Perryville, the first orphanage in St. Louis run by the Sisters of Charity and other emerging Catholic institutions in our region.
We were once among those receiving the help of the universal Church. Today, we have the privilege of extending that same missionary solidarity to others.
That is the beautiful reciprocity at the heart of the theme Pope Leo XIV has chosen for this centennial World Mission Sunday: “One in Christ, united in mission.”
The Holy Father reminds us that our unity in Christ necessarily sends us outward. We cannot truly belong to Christ without also belonging to one another, including brothers and sisters whom we may never meet and whose lives may be very different from our own.
Today, in more than 1,100 mission territories around the world, the Church proclaims the Gospel in circumstances of great need. Priests travel long distances to celebrate Mass and the sacraments. Seminarians prepare for ordination in dioceses that cannot afford the full cost of their formation. Religious sisters serve children, families, the sick and the poor. Catechists sustain communities of faith in places a priest may be able to visit only occasionally.
World Mission Sunday allows each of us to stand beside them, just as Catholics elsewhere once stood beside the growing Church here in St. Louis.
Kyley Hansford and her mother Vanessa Hansford, parishioners at St. Michael in Indiana, prayed the World Mission Rosary before the Mass of beatification of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen on Sept. 24 at The Dome at America’s Center in St. Louis. Blessed Sheen introduced the World Mission Rosary in 1951, inviting Catholics to pray for the Church on every continent.
For 16 years, Blessed Fulton Sheen served as national director of The Pontifical Mission Societies in the United States. Through his preaching, writing and extraordinary ability to communicate the faith, he invited generations of American Catholics to recognize their responsibility toward the Church throughout the world.
In 1951, he introduced the World Mission Rosary, inviting Catholics to pray for the Church on every continent. His vision was simple but profound: Our prayer should be as universal as the Church herself.
That vision remains urgently needed today.
The honor of having hosted Archbishop Sheen’s beatification gives the Archdiocese of St. Louis a special connection to him in this historic year. But I hope it gives us something more as well: a renewed desire to carry forward the missionary cause to which he devoted so much of his priestly ministry.
The most fitting tribute we can offer Blessed Fulton Sheen is not simply to remember what he accomplished. It is to continue the work he loved.
On Oct.18, I ask Catholics throughout the Archdiocese of St. Louis to pray for missionaries and the communities they serve. Pray the World Mission Rosary that Blessed Fulton Sheen gave to the Church. And when the World Mission Sunday collection is taken up in your parish, please give generously according to your means.
A century ago, World Mission Sunday gave Catholics everywhere a common way to support the missions. More than a century before that, Catholics elsewhere were already helping the Church take root here in St. Louis.
We have received. Now it is our turn to give.
May we do so with gratitude and joy — one in Christ, united in mission.
World Mission Sunday
Since 1926, World Mission Sunday has provided for the Church’s worldwide missionary work. Now, more than 1,100 mission dioceses receive financial support from the World Mission Sunday collections. Support goes to seminarians, catechists, religious, care of orphans and the elderly, rural health clinics and many other works.
The archdiocesan Mission Office manages the local second collection in coordination with the National Office of the Pontifical Mission Societies in the United States. For more information see stlreview.com/4yzQt75.
