Oct. 17, 2018

Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ:
The weekend of October 20-21 our diocesan family joins Catholics across the globe in celebrating World Mission Sunday. We join our sisters and brothers around the world who will gather at the Lord’s Table to celebrate our common vocation as missionaries.

In his message for this year’s celebration, Pope Francis tells us that “life is a mission” and he reminds us that “each one of us is called to reflect on this fact: I am a mission on this earth; that is the reason why I am here in this world.” (Evangelii Gaudium, 273)

I invite all of us to see World Mission Sunday as a special moment to live out the mission we share as God’s children, the mission to bring the Gospel to the whole world.

I encourage you to be a “voice for mission” through your prayers and through the help that you are able to offer in support of the priests, deacons, consecrated religious and lay pastoral leaders who work tirelessly, proclaiming the Gospel, building the Church, and serving the poor in more than 1,100 mission dioceses in Asia and Africa, the Pacific Islands, and parts of Latin America and Europe.

The prayers and material aid generously given to the collection for the Society for the Propagation of the Faith on World Mission Sunday, the Pope tells us, continue to support the “preaching of the Gospel to every nation,” thus “contributing to the human and cultural growth of all those who thirst for knowledge of the truth.”

“Mission revitalizes faith,” St. Pope John Paul II wrote in Redemptoris Missio (#2).

May your commitment to the Lord’s continuing mission renew your faith and be a blessing in your life.

God bless you for responding generously to today’s special appeal for the missions.

Gratefully yours in Christ,

Most Reverend Terry R. LaValley
Bishop of Ogdensburg