World Mission Sunday, which takes place on the next-to-last Sunday of October each year (which this year is October 18), is the day when as a Church we all come together to recommit ourselves to our baptismal call to be missionaries. Yes, each of us is called to be a missionary by virtue of our baptism— not just priests and religious, not just those serving in foreign countries, but each and every one of us (cf. Mt 28:19). Pope Francis emphasizes this fact in his apostolic exhortation “Evangelii Gaudium” (“The Joy of the Gospel”) where he teaches that all the members of the people of God have become missionary disciples through baptism and that each of us is called to be personally involved in the missionary work of the church. This is not just a collective responsibility, but a personal responsibility of every person baptized in Christ Jesus.
As those who read what I write are aware, one of my favorite doctrines of the Church is that of the Communion of Saints in which the saints in heaven, the souls in purgatory and the faithful here on earth are bound together in spiritual solitary in the mystical body of Christ. We exist not only as individuals, but more importantly as members of Christ’s mystical body as St. Paul so wonderfully tells us. Many of us pray to patron saints for specific needs. Who has not prayed to St. Anthony for a lost item? However, the saints are not just porcelain statues who interceded for us, but real people who lived real lives with the same struggles as you and me. Some of the saints didn’t even live very saintly lives for much of their lives— St. Dismas, the Good Thief crucified next to Jesus at Calvary being the perfect example. However, God’s love and mercy is inexhaustible, which is good news for me as a sinner who needs God’s mercy. To me the saints are examples of those who have fought the good fight and finished the race. (cf. 2 Timothy 4:7). Interestingly, the Church has given us not one, but two patron saints for missionaries and missions— two examples of missionary discipleship for us to emulate and call on for help. Both have something important and unique to teach us.
The first, St. Francis Xavier, is what most of us think of when we hear the word missionary. Francis Xavier was born in Spain in 1506. When he was 19, he went to study at the University of Paris on his way to becoming a priest. While at the University of Paris, he became friends with another future saint, Ignatius of Loyola. Together, they would go on to establish the Society of Jesus, the Jesuits. Just a few years later, the Fr. Francis Xavier sailed from Portugal to India, where he introduced many people to the Catholic faith. He next traveled to the East Indies and then to Japan, where he was the first missionary to preach the Gospel. Along the way, Francis Xavier baptized tens of thousands of people motivated by his missionary desire to make Jesus know to the whole world. He died at the age of 46 off the coast of China, where he wanted to preach the Gospel next. As China was closed to foreigners at the time, Francis Xavier was trying to be smuggled into the country when he contracted a fatal disease. St. Francis Xavier was instrumental in the establishment of Christianity in India and Japan and is considered the greatest Catholic foreign missionary of modern times.
One of my favorite quotes of St. Francis Xavier is “In Thee, O Lord, have I put my hope. Let me never be confounded.” Above all, mission is about trusting in the Lord. As I will come back to in a bit, mission is not so much about doing and accomplishing, but about trusting, being humble, and allowing God to work through you.
The second patron saint of missionaries is St. Therese of Lisieux— a seemingly more unlikely candidate than St. Francis Xavier. St. Therese was born in 1873 and entered the Carmelite convent in Lisieux, France at the age of 15, just short of her sixteenth birthday. She died at the age of 24 after years of struggle with tuberculosis. Not only did St. Therese die at the very young age of 24, but she spent all of her adult life, what little there was of it, as a cloistered nun. St. Therese wanted very much to be sent on mission to Vietnam, but her poor health precluded her from leaving the confines of the convent. And yet, not only is St. Therese the Patroness of Missions, although having never left her Carmelite cloister, but she is also a Doctor of the Church, although she barely had an education and had no formal theological training. To put things in perspective, in its 2000 year history, St. Therese is one of only thirty-six Doctors of the Church. Dying at only 24 years old, she is also the youngest person to be so designated.
The fact that St. Therese is the Patroness of Missions, although being confined to a cloister until she died, is a testament to the important role we all share as missionaries by virtue of our baptism. St Therese lived out missionary discipleship though prayer, sacrifice, and love, not serving in foreign lands. Through her lived example, countless numbers of people have come to know and love God. She offered her prayers and sufferings for missionaries around the world. Her last words before she succumbed to tuberculosis were “My God, I love You!” What more could you expect of any missionary?
Like St Francis Xavier, St. Therese put her hope in the Lord. She lived her life in childlike trust of God and God’s love for her. She said “God would never inspire me with desires which cannot be realized; so in spite of my littleness, I can hope to be a saint.” Trusting in God is so essential to being a missionary. We must be humble and acknowledge that we are not in control and can do nothing of our own accord. As exemplified in Jesus’s miracle of the loaves and fishes, we just need to use what God has given us to the best of our abilities and leave the rest to Him.
By human standards, St. Therese didn’t accomplish anything great. However, what she did do is live the ordinary events of everyday life with extraordinary love. “What matters in life,” she wrote, “is not great deeds, but great love. “In humility, she committed herself to living out every encounter with other people and every task put before her with love. This was St. Therese’s Little Way.
As I take stock in my development as a missionary disciple, albeit one currently doing foreign mission, I realize that I still have much room for improvement. I know that l focus far too much on accomplishments (or lack thereof) in my ministry work. I have so many things that I want to accomplish that they sometimes become too much of a preoccupation. I get too frustrated when when things don’t go the way I had planned, which is most of the time.
At this point in missionary life, I tend to feel more like St. Francis Xavier then St. Therese, but without quite the total trust in God that St. Francis Xavier had. I’m making no claims to holiness, just the opposite. My point is that my current mode of operation is more about doing, even though I know and desire to focus more on how I do things. I struggle with just letting things happen and feel compelled to make them happen. I have little patience and want to get things done in my timeframe, not necessarily God’s. Even when I made an effort to listen more as to better discern God’s will, I often get distracted.
When I first came to Kenya, I wrote the following on my Maryknoll Lay Missioner profile page (https://mklm.org/profile-rich-tarro). “My approach to my ministry work and my life as a missioner is to strive to do everything, even the simple things of everyday life, with love. I’m not trying to save the world, but rather have others experience Christ in me through the way I live and share my life with them. I am inspired by St. Therese of Lisieux, who said ‘Our Lord does not so much look at the greatness of our actions, or even at their difficulty, as at the love with which we do them.’” Today as I reflect on how I want to live my life in light of my missionary discipleship as a baptized Christian, I wouldn’t change a word.
Like most of us, I’m a work in progress. Like St. Paul and the rest of us sinners, “I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it.” (Romans 7:15). I want everything I do to be done out of love, but many times fall short. I know I need to trust God more and stop trying to drive the train so that God can work though me. I know that Jesus is calling me to simply get in the boat with Him, but I most times feel more like St. Peter sinking out on the stormy sea and Jesus saying to me “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”
As Catholics, we are blessed to not only have two exemplary models of missionary discipleship in St. Francis Xavier and St. Therese of Lisieux, but also two powerful advocates. I pray for their intercession to help me better live my life in childlike trust of our loving God and Father. I pray that I’m better able to act more out of love in even the simplest things, which are often times the most challenging for me.
St. Therese promised that “When I die, I will spend my heaven doing good on earth.“ I ask her to fulfill that promise in me every day. Please pray for me and my HOPE ministry project as I pray for each of you. Thanks to all who support me in my ministry work. Your generosity is what makes my work even possible. I’m just the feet on the ground distributing your generous gifts to those we serve together.
St. Therese and St. Francis Xavier pray for us.
Mungu ni mwema. God is good.
Please consider donating to my HOPE ministry project, which provides educational assistance to orphans and other vulnerable children, particularly those impacted by AIDS, in Mombasa, Kenya.
You can learn more about the HOPE project on our website.
I liked what you said about the communion of saints. It was something that came up in my readings for my Ignatian spirituality class this week. It came up in terms of sources of the good spirit as we are studying discernment