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• Readings for Sunday, June 28th

  The 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time

• Sunday Homily

  Every summer each of our diocesan parishes welcomes a visiting missionary. A missionary order is assigned to us. And a collection is taken to support their foreign missionary efforts. 

  
  

  This year we will host a lay woman, Marie Farrell, on July 18 and 19, speaking on behalf of the Archdiocese of Port-au-Prince in Haiti. She’ll be representing Bishop Reidy’s Diocese, Norwich, in its support of the people in Port-au-Prince.

  
  

  These annual visitors serve in “the missions.” They bring the love of Jesus to foreign countries, and they come to our parishes to share the importance of their efforts and seek funds to sustain that work. 

  
  

  Missionaries have always played a central role in the life of the Church. They leave their homeland and carry the faith to far off places where the name of Christ has perhaps never been heard. 

  
  

  None of us are old enough to remember but the United States itself was still mission territory in the early Twentieth Century.

  
  

  Worcester County didn’t even have one resident priest until 60 years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence which we’ll celebrate in a special way next Saturday.

  
  

  I have a friend who told me that growing up in her parish in Miami in the 1980s they had five priests. Every one of them were missionaries from Ireland. Even then, Florida had few native priests. 

  
  

  Most of you have probably been up to Fitton Field, the football stadium at Holy Cross. It’s named after Father James Fitton, the first missionary to Worcester. I’ve mentioned him before. Ordained in 1827, he was one of just two Catholic priests serving all New England. 

  
  

  And at that time, he was responsible for all the Catholics living in Connecticut plus, in Massachusetts, from Framingham out to the New York border of the state. Talk about commitment. And he bought and donated to the Bishop of Boston the land on which Holy Cross sits so that a Catholic college could be founded there.

  
  

  Since he served in all six New England states it was said of him that “All New England should be called Fitton Field.” Extraordinary man!

  
  

  I mention this considering today’s Gospel.

  
  

  The words of Jesus are always addressed to all of us of course. We’re all called to hear and live by the Gospels in their entirety.

  
  

  But sometimes you hear a passage that’s directed specifically to a certain group. And today’s is.

  
  

  Yes, we’re all challenged to love God with heart, soul, mind and body first and foremost. We’re all called to put the love of God first, hard as that sounds.

  
  

  We’re all called to follow Jesus, make sacrifices, and go out of our way to help others who are suffering. 

  
  

  But what’s clear today is that Jesus was speaking to the apostles in a very personal and direct way. He’s about to send these men to new places and he’s telling them how to live. This Gospel is called St. Matthew’s “Mission Discourse.”

  
  

  It’s addressed to the twelve apostles, yes, but to all of us down the ages.

  
  

  Jesus makes two basic points about being a missionary. 

  
  

  First, the apostles must subordinate their love for family and serve him first. If you lose your life for me, for this missionary work, you’ll find life. You’ll find me! And what a reward to find Christ!

  
  

  So, take up the cross of leaving family behind to serve others elsewhere.

  
  

  Second, you can count on being well received by many of those who will listen to you. And those who give you even a cup of cold water will share in the blessings I promise.

  
  

  And in generation after generation Christian men and women have left families behind to bring the name of Christ elsewhere. They’ve taken the Gospel to foreign lands. From Saints Peter and Paul onwards. We’ll celebrate the missionary activity of those two great saints at Mass tomorrow.

  
  

  From the days of the early Church up to today priests, religious men and women, teachers, doctors and nurses have gone in the thousands to spend their lives in the far corners of the world. What an incredible sacrifice of “taking up the cross!”

  
  

  Some missionaries returned home after a lifetime ministry elsewhere to enjoy their family members in retirement. Far more died in the service of Christ in far-off places, often without ever seeing their native land or their families again. 

  
  

  And many missionaries settled permanently in the mission field, giving up their native language and culture to become one with the people they were called to serve.

  
  

  Often enough, missionaries, like the apostles, encountered rejection, hostility, persecution and hatred, as Jesus warned in the Gospel verses that appear just before what we hear today.

  
  

  But just as often there were people who received them, and in receiving them, these people received Christ. 

  
  

  It’s not clear that those people they served always became Christians. The peoples in foreign lands don’t always become Christians but they do receive Christ when they’ve received those who come in the name of Christ. In a mysterious way, they’ve cooperated in the Lord’s work.

  
  

  What Jesus says to the Twelve here in the “Mission Discourse” reminds us of the indispensable role of missionaries in the Church today...of the sacrifices they make and the risks they run. And that’s especially true when they take a stand in favor of justice for the poor.

  
  

  And for these men and women we should be very grateful!

• Download the homily

  • Homily for June 28th