World Mission Sunday is the Holy Father’s annual appeal for spiritual and financial support so that the life-giving work of overseas mission and missionaries can continue. It always falls on the second last Sunday in October, meaning this year it will be celebrated over the weekend of Sunday 19th October. The theme for Mission Sunday 20205 is: Missionaries of Hope Among All Peoples.
“Go, and make disciples of all nations”, spreading “the joy that springs from encountering His Divine Heart.” (Pope Leo XIV, speaking to the Networks of Indigenous Peoples and the Network of Indian Theology Theologians, Oct. 2025).
It is indeed the business of the entire church to bring the gospel lived to the whole world.
The Missionary Church
The idea of missionary people, and indeed ‘missionaries’ is not something ‘foreign’ to us here in Ireland. We all know of people woven within our family history or who, in recent times, have taken up the ‘call of God’ to travel to far off diverse cultures to make Him known! Just ordinary people, like you and me, from within families, neighbourhoods, and communities who felt the strong pull to leave everything familiar and comfortable to ‘go and do for others’.
The other part of the pact which is true around my own homeplace, is the loyalty and personal responsibility taken by families and communities ‘at home’ not to forget those people: to fund raise, support and pray for their mission work and for the people they live and work with. All done with the strong conviction held that this is ‘all Church’, we united with them, as one body.
Then, there are the welcome letters that arrive sharing the needs and experience of a people/peoples far from us, followed by updates as to how the prayers and support have made a difference in very practical ways. This followed by the boundless joy and celebration if those missionaries returned, to be enveloped and cared for once again in their own communities and families, bringing wisdom and life and a certain sacredness back with them – a community blessed both by their absence and their presence.
Mission Sunday is something real
So, Mission Sunday is something very real! With always something very practical that we can commit to and do. We too, can be an essential part of the Church’s Mission in so many very practical ways.
But above all on this Mission Sunday let us pray and give thanks for all those who accept the daily challenges of missionary life, and who through their courage and faith bring Light, Hope and Support to dark corners of the world as if it was Jesus himself, who had arrived there.
Our Presentation Story is woven through with Sisters who travelled to set up foundations and initiate practical projects at the very farthest corners of the Earth, offering solidarity and presence with those made and kept poor, through chance or circumstance. We are currently in twenty countries spanning the six continents!
Presentation People connected to the mission and charism of Nano Nagle and the Presentation Sisters includes lay associates, partners in mission, educators, advocates, and supporters who embody Nano Nagle’s vision of justice, compassion, and service. United by a commitment to education, human rights, environmental sustainability, and social justice, Presentation People work to create a more just and compassionate world.
Let us pray for the strength, protection and safety of all missionaries and the people they live and work alongside.
Jesus, we ask you to walk beside your missionaries as they seek to proclaim your Gospel
Cherish, guide, and strengthen them
help them to be patient when they meet frustrations, and encourage them when they are disappointed.
Lead them, we ask you, along the path you desire for them
For you live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit for ever.
Amen.
Mission House
Nano,
Your heart yearned to embrace the world,
But your ways were held within narrow streets.
Each day’s pilgrimage was walled. You fared
Beyond no sea to share God’s Word.
No, you kindled fire on homely hearths,
Small sparks of hope against the dark.
But within, … ah, within … there blazed such fire,
Such beacon of desire to see the dream of God
Made real on earth, that still it flames
To kindle other hearts, afar in space and time.
And we, whose steps are held in walled
And narrow ways, ask only this:
May we burn with like desire while here we seek
To bring the dream of God alive today
To every small corner of our yearning world.
~ Sr. Raphael Consedine, PBVM
See https://missio.ie/mission-month/
Also https://columbans.co.uk/pray/17278/intercessions-for-world-mission-sunday/
And Message by Pope Leo XIV for Mission Sunday 2025
PDF of Childrens’ Rosary for Mission Prayer Childrens-Mission-Month-Resource
