In Pope Francis message for World Mission Sunday, 2021 he offered this prayer:
To be on mission is to be willing to think as Christ does,
to believe with him that those around us
are also my brothers and sisters.
May his compassionate love touch our hearts
and make us all true missionary disciples.
May Mary, the first missionary disciple,
increase in all the baptized
the desire to be salt and light in our lands.
“Once we experience the power of God’s love… we cannot help but proclaim and share what we have seen and heard… Go therefore to the highways and byways, and invite everyone you find” (Mt 22:9). No one is excluded, no one need feel distant or removed from this compassionate love.”
The Apostles watched Jesus “cure the sick, dine with sinners, feed the hungry, draw near to the outcast, touch the unclean, identify with the needy, propose the Beatitudes and teach in a new and authoritative way… awakening amazement, expansive joy and a profound sense of gratitude.”
And while Pope Francis spoke about the early church he also noted: “The same holds true for us: our own times are not easy. The pandemic has brought to the fore and amplified the pain, the solitude, the poverty and the injustices experienced by so many people.”
“Everything we have received from the Lord is meant to be put to good use and freely shared with others.” Pope Francis reminds us.
And while Mission Doctors’ mission is to send Catholic Doctor to serve at Mission Hospitals, Pope Francis reminds us that “even those who are most frail, limited and troubled can be missionaries in their own way, for goodness can always be shared, even if it exists alongside many limitations” (Christus Vivit, 239). The doctors may be the ones serving, yet they can never do this alone.
On World Mission Sunday I invite you to remember Mission Doctors and their patients in your prayers and also please pray “the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest” (Lk 10:2).
Elise Frederick