Don Bosco Philippines South Province

Homily on Mission Sunday, 29th Sun. in OT, 20 October 2024, FSpIF Chapel Talamban

Allow me to begin with a story I heard from an old priest who used to hear our confessions back in our seminary days. His name is Fr Peter Garbero, a Salesian missionary from Italy. It was during a conference on the missions that he shared with us this story of an old Chinese man who converted to the Catholic Faith.

It happened in the month of May 1928, Thursday at 9:00 pm when he was still a young missionary in China. (Notice how he was very exact to the last detail.) While he was sleeping a certain man suddenly rushed towards him, saying “Wake up, please hurry, an old man is dying.” So he got up immediately and asked his teacher to come along and help him speak in Chinese.

When they arrived at the place, the dying man said to him in Chinese, “I know you’re a Catholic missionary. Please baptize me and send me to heaven.” After hearing the translation, Fr Peter asked, “How did you know about the Catholic religion and why do you want me to baptize you?” The man replied, “An old lady told me that if I want to go to heaven I should look for a Catholic priest before dying and ask him to baptize me. Now that I have found you, a Catholic priest, please baptize me and send me to heaven.” Fr Peter turned again to his teacher for help. But suddenly at that moment by the gift of the Holy Spirit he was able to speak to the old man fluently in Chinese, and moments later, he baptized the dying man, giving him the name, Jose.

Brothers and sisters, today is World Mission Sunday. And the story I shared with you is just one among countless stories you can hear about what Catholic missionaries are doing in various parts of the world. Many of these, whether priests, religious or lay missionaries, are working in extremely difficult situations, to the point of risking their lives just to spread the Gospel and eventually save souls. And that is why today we are enjoined by the Church to extend our whole hearted support for the Missions, by praying for these missionaries, by offering financial assistance, by sharing our material blessings, and by volunteering our services.

But above all, the Church wants to invite every Catholic faithful to reflect on whether God might be calling him or her to be a missionary, to leave behind home and country and go abroad to some foreign nation with a burning desire to share the Catholic faith with those who do not yet know Jesus.

In the gospel we have heard today, Jesus was somehow annoyed by the request of two of his closest disciples, James and John. These two sons of Zebedee approached him one day and told him what they wanted, saying “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.” Their words must have sounded badly in the ears of Jesus on two counts: they wanted power and position, and they demanded it wrongly. Instead of putting themselves at the service of the Mission, they put the Mission at their service.

Catholic mission is not ME being served, but rather ME being at the service of others. And for Jesus that is what makes a man or a woman truly great in the eyes of God. In fact Jesus himself had been showing to them that he has come not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many. He was indeed the suffering servant prophesied by Isaiah in the Old Testament, sent by God as savior of the world.

In the story I narrated earlier, Fr Peter went to the missions without expecting anything in return. In fact he offered to the Church not just money, but himself by volunteering to become a Salesian missionary priest abroad. He left Italy his homeland and travelled faraway to be a missionary in China. And later on when the Christian missionaries were expelled from China during the communist take over led by Mao Tse Tung, Fr Peter opted not to go back to his homeland in Italy but to obey his superiors who sent him to his new mission here in the Philippines.

Now, to continue the story that I began to narrate earlier, before the newly baptized man actually died, Fr Peter asked from him three favors. But I can recall only two of them as I was not able to jot down the third. Number one, he said to the old man “When you reach heaven, thank Jesus for your Baptism; and (number three) ask Jesus to convert your whole family.”

The following Sunday the old man’s son came to Fr Peter to attend catechism classes and eventually got baptized. Afterwards, Fr Peter went to his house to destroy all the pagan idols, and in their place, he put the images of Jesus and the Blessed Virgin Mary. Then he blessed the house, and from that time on all the relatives of the old man became Catholics.

Brothers and sisters, the MISSION entrusted to the Church needs more and more our support. And today the Lord seems to be telling us not to let that support be limited to praying and almsgiving. The Lord’s mission is ME-sion, that is, ME being sent.

May this Eucharistic celebration, therefore, make us realize seriously our being ME-sionaries sent by God to others. And through the intercession of our Blessed Mother as well as of San Pedro Calungsod, the first Visayan missionary catechist to be canonized a saint, may we all be empowered to offer ourselves totally, along with our material blessings and God-given talents for the spread of the Gospel and the salvation of many souls, all for the greater glory of God.

Remember this: the Lord’s mission is ME-sion, that is, ME being sent to others. GiGsss!

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