World Mission Sunday!

​We are celebrating Mission Sunday. Mission Sunday invites us to reflect beyond our local church and see the mission of the universal church. Some give to the missions by going. Some go by giving. Mission Sunday is the day to reach out beyond the needs of the local Parish and diocese to assist missionaries as they go and tell in the young churches. Pope Francis urges us to reflect on the theme, “You shall be my witness.” Mission     Sunday brings us together to celebrate our faith and support through our prayer and financially Pope Francis's mission.
In his letter, Rev. Msgr. Kieran E. Harrington says the story of Pauline Jaricot. He writes, “In 1822, in a small city of France, laywoman Pauline Jaricot called a group of young women together to pray for missionaries abroad and support them with a penny a week. These efforts helped to build the Church in the United States. Today, we have the same opportunity to Witness Christ by joining in that effort of praying for and promoting foreign missions in our homes and parishes.”
The “You shall be my witness” challenges us to reflect on our faith journey. If we want to be effective        witnesses of Christ, we must grow in prayer. As we celebrate World Mission Sunday, first we are called to support the mission through prayer, also support financially, and all other possible ways.
This weekend's reading is on genuine prayer. Prayer is communication with God, being with God. We looked at the different aspects of prayer last weekend. This weekend, the first reading from the Book of Sirach, we are reminded that “The one who serves God willingly is heard.” We see in this passage the complimentarity     between liturgical worship and social justice. During the time of Ben Sirach, many Jews were living in the midst of pagans. Eventually, unknowingly the Jews assimilated the pagan culture. So, Ben Sirach taught them how to lead a good life and be faithful Jews. Sirach asserts that God shows no favoritism. He listens to the humble prayers of the poor, fatherless, and widows.
Luke’s Gospel shows special concern for the poor and the outsider. In today’s Gospel, we see the prayer of the Pharisee and the tax collector. The self-righteous, critical attitude of the Pharisees and tax collectors’ humility and dependence on God, guide us to form true and effective prayer. The fundamental attitude of the Christian disciple must be the recognition of sinfulness and complete dependence on God’s graciousness. Jesus warns in Matthew 6:5, “When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, who love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on street corners so that others may see them. Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward.”
True and effective prayer demands a humble disposition. The Pharisee in the parable offered thanks to God for his own qualities and success but arrogantly contrasts contrasted his virtues against the tax collector’s sins and shortcomings. Pharisee came with a checklist of his performance.
On the other hand, the tax collector came with a humble and contrite heart. This is the attitude we are called to have when we come for Mass. Every Eucharist starts with a moment of recalling our sins and asking God’s mercy: “Kyrie/Christe, Eleison.” Jesus tells his audience and us, as a result of tax collectors’ humble prayer for mercy, he received mercy and went home truly “justified,” i.e., “reconciled to God.” St. Paul reminds us in Titus 3:5: “Not because of any righteous deeds we have done but because of His mercy, He has saved us through the bath of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.”
In the second reading, Paul sensed the proximity of his own death, like a runner running a race, and that he has kept the Faith right up to this point. He humbly awaits “the crown of righteousness” which is through the grace of God. Paul says, “I have competed well; I have finished the race; I have kept the faith!”