Good morning, brothers and sisters.
The final line from the Gospel we’ve just heard is somewhat haunting:
“…when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?"
Today, which is World Missions Sunday, I’d like to focus on this question: How is the Christian faith doing today, on planet Earth? How has the Gospel been preached and received across our world?
The Son of God came to Earth, died for our sins, and founded a Church, giving it the Great Commission. This Great Commission is recorded at the end of the Gospel of Mark:
“Go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; whoever does not believe will be condemned.”
Since then, thousands of Christian missionaries have endured great hardships, even torture and martyrdom, to preach the Gospel. And starting with the earliest apostles, the Church has had great success, spreading like wildfire across the Roman Empire. But there were major setbacks: for example, in the 7th century with the rise of Islam, nearly half of the Christian world-- including the Middle East, North Africa, and Spain – was conquered by Muslim armies, and before long Christians became a minority [not by conversion by the sword, but through regulations like the Pact of Umar, which placed significant, persecutory restrictions on Christians - as second-class citizens].
In the modern era, the rise of secular atheism saw severe persecution for Christians: whether guillotining French Catholic nuns during the French Revolution, or imprisoning Russian Orthodox or Chinese Christians during violent Communist revolutions.
More recently the Christian West battled post-modernism: the belief that there are no universal truths, that your truth is good for you, that we should be spiritual but not religious. The Church’s sex abuse scandal only worsened its position. And in recent years we have the rise of wokeism: with many people today thinking that being a devout Catholic means being misogynistic, homophobic, and unscientific. [answers to these objections here]
Against these recent threats, Christ’s Church has not fared particularly well. Particularly in the West, people are leaving the Church in great numbers.
The stats are pretty sobering. According to the latest data from the Pew Research Center, the percent of people in the world who are Christian is falling: it fell by about 2% from 2010 to 2020. For every 1 person becoming Christian, more than 3 are leaving – most of them becoming ‘unaffiliated’, or ‘nones’. The numbers are even worse for American Catholics – for every 1 person becoming Catholic in the USA, around 8 are leaving the Church. These aren’t just stats, but real people: I’m sure all of us can think of family or friends who are ex-Catholics. If trends continue, the Pew Center predicts that - by 2070 - Christianity will no longer be the world's largest religion.
So... When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on Earth? Or will he find a religion that is being eclipsed?
Not only do we have many Christians in the West leaving the faith. But in the East, we have failed to make major inroads in large non-Christian countries. Currently, about 2/3 of the world’s population lives in the 10/40 window.
I want to ask for a show of hands. Does anyone here know about the 10/40 window? [Hands?] We Catholics don’t talk about it much… I only learned about it from Evangelical friends in medical school – but it’s the part of the globe between the 10th and 40th degrees north latitude – it includes North Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. Roughly 5 billion people live there, and a huge percent of them do not know the Gospel. In fact, it’s often dangerous to preach the Gospel there.
Here in the U.S. we often take freedom of speech and religion for granted … but imagine taking a Bible in your hand and proclaiming the Gospel in a public square in a country in the 10/40 window: like Saudi Arabia, or Iran, or Pakistan, or North Korea, or China. This gives us an idea of what our Christian missionary brethren are dealing with every day in these countries.
My wife and I have had the opportunity to join a number of medical mission trips, and meet many missionaries. It’s not an easy life. We know a talented Indian-American physician who moved his family to a mission hospital in India, but -after a few years- his visa was revoked and he was kicked out - simply for being a missionary. I know Christian missionaries in east Asia who have to email using code-words for God or Jesus, given that authorities are likely monitoring their emails. We know a Catholic missionary physician in Sudan [an amazing man - they made a movie about him] who has had his hospital bombed. Missionaries in Muslim countries have to be very careful, including with their flock: in many countries it is quite dangerous for a Muslim who converts to Christianity (i.e. who 'apostatizes'): they can be ostracized or even killed.
Studies conducted year after year confirm that Christians are by far the most persecuted religious group worldwide. On average, a Christian is killed every 2 hours in Nigeria. The news rarely mentions this, but it’s true.
In sum: it is very difficult to preach the Gospel in these countries, and thus many people there have not heard it.
They simply do not know. I think about two Chinese housemates I had when I lived in Oxford. Both were quite intelligent people getting their master’s degrees from Oxford- and yet once they asked me, ‘So you are Christian? We have a question: did Jesus really exist? All we have heard is what we learned from the Da Vinci Code.’ If even these quite educated people knew nothing of Jesus, what of the 1.6 billion others in China?
‘When the Son of God comes, will he find faith on the earth?’
Have we followed Christ’s command – a command which is for all of us?
“Go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; whoever does not believe will be condemned.’
If we think about those billions of people living in the 10/40 window… our hearts should ache. It’s worse than hearing about a worldwide famine, because this is a spiritual famine – lives without the nutriment of the Gospel or the Eucharist (the Bread of Angels) – and it’s been going on for centuries.
I think about the words of Mother Teresa, who once had a vision that led to her starting the Missionaries of Charity. She wrote down these words [as recorded in the book Come Be My Light]:
I saw a very big crowd—all kinds of people—
very poor and children were there also. …
They called out “Come, come, save us—bring us to Jesus.”
[And then Jesus spoke to her]: “Come be My light.—I cannot go alone….
How I long to enter their holes…”
How Jesus longed to enter into this country.
Mother Teresa later wrote to her archbishop: “Let me go… Souls are being lost in the meantime!”
This is the sort of enthusiasm we should have for missions. Souls are at stake.
[Of course, God can save whomever He pleases, and we pray and hope that non-Christians too are saved. But there's no doubting that being baptized and following Jesus is a huge help. It's a bit like having a life-vest when there's a flood approaching - and we want this life-vest for everyone.]
I myself still think about my visits to India… where there are innumerable temples to various deities, but not a church for miles and miles… where the caste system vilifies the poor ‘untouchables’ (Dalits) and oppresses women… where Christ is barely known… and my heart aches.
This concern for spreading the Gospel… for World Missions is what should keep us up at night. Instead, we tend to worry about our favorite sports team or politician.
Think of almost any Catholic saint - whoever is your favorite saint - and there’s a good chance that they dreamed of becoming a missionary to foreign lands at some point. This is the logical desire of a heart in love with Christ and his Gospel. But nowadays, how many of us think about becoming missionaries overseas?
We should at least consider it… Because we are all connected: no man is an island, we are all responsible for one another. Preaching is our responsibility too.
As John Paul II wrote:
“No believer in Christ, no institution of the Church
can avoid this supreme duty:
to proclaim Christ to all peoples. …
If they fail to respond to this grace [to preach]…
they will be judged more severely.”
Or as we heard St Paul speaking strongly in our 2nd Reading:
“I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead… proclaim the word; be persistent whether it is convenient or inconvenient; convince, reprimand, encourage through all patience and teaching.”
So we need to PREACH the word, whether convenient or not. Christ will judge us all. We need to be persistent, to convince others of the Truth of the Gospel.
Unfortunately, most Catholics don't even have preaching on our radar.
In another Pew Center study, they asked people what they would do if they encountered someone with a different belief system. Like if you’re a Catholic and you meet a non-Catholic. The overwhelming majority of Catholics responded that they would either avoid talking about religion or simply agree to disagree. Only 3% thought you should try to persuade the other person – in order words, that you should try to evangelize. This was lower than every religious group (except Jewish). We shy away from preaching.
Compare this to, say, Mormons or Evangelicals, who are taught to evangelize from an early age. It’s no wonder that Protestants now outnumber Catholics in several countries in Latin America.
So we haven’t done a great job in recent years, in preaching the faith, whether close to home or overseas. We haven’t followed the mandate of Jesus, which was repeated by St Paul and St John Paul II.
Perhaps at this point you’re thinking: ok Deacon, I understand that we as a Church could do a better job evangelizing, but what I am supposed to do? I can’t just quit my school or job and move overseas.
Well, actually, maybe you should at least consider this. Maybe maybe God is calling you to participate actively in mission work overseas. It should at least be on your radar.
There are many good short- and long-term mission opportunities. For example, Family Missions Company organizes several missions every year to Latin America – including a trip our parish is taking to Mexico next February. What a great way to fulfill the Great Commission.There are many other opportunities, and fortunately there’s an excellent online database at www.CatholicVolunteerNetwork.org. You can plug in what you’re looking for, and it will give opportunities across the globe.
Of course, Going overseas is not easy, and not for everyone.
But all of us are called to support the missions in some way. Many roles are needed.
[One option is to create online content: it's amazing how far this can reach.]
I think of the 1st reading, in which the Israelites are battling the Malachites. This can be seen as an analogy of God’s people engaged in spiritual battle. The front-line soldiers on the battlefield are like the front-line missionaries, people living overseas: actively evangelizing despite persecution. Up on the hill is Moses: he is holding his arms up in prayer to support these soldiers: and as long as he prays, the battle is going well.
Just so, it is our job to support the missions with prayer. Indeed, the main point of today’s Gospel is that we should be persistent in prayer. Thus, we should pray daily for world missions. Maybe if we did, the stats would improve.
The Venerable Fulton Sheen recommended the World Mission Rosary: when you pray this, you dedicate each of the 5 mysteries to the missions in a different continent, so the one decade is for Asia, another decade for Africa, and so forth. It’s a beautiful way to support those front-line missionaries.
In this way, we are like Moses holding his hands up. But on each side of Moses are Aaron and Hur, supporting him. Scholars like Bishop Barron see these men as an analogy of the financial support that is needed to support those devoted to prayer- the philanthropists who support monasteries or convents or global missions.
So – yes, to quote the Bernie Sanders meme – I am once again asking for your financial support … not for our parish, but for the missions, for groups like the Society of the Propagation of the Faith, which promulgates World Mission Sunday.
Last but definitely not least, we must recall that our first mission is our own home, our own community. To support global missions, we should first of all strive to be saints at home and work, and to preach – by example and by word – to those around us… Yes, peach by word… this may seem awkward at first because we aren’t trained. May I suggest folks listen to Word on Fire [or visit our parish bookshelf, and grab a book from the ‘evangelization’ section, like Brandon Vogt's What to Say and How to Say It.] Like any skill, evangelization can be learned. As our 2nd Reading said:
spiritual writings can be 'useful for teaching, for refutation, for correction,
and for training in righteousness, so that one who belongs to God may be competent,
equipped for every good work.'
It is a daunting task, but at least we should learn and try.
“…when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?"
I pray that he finds us trying, in some way, to fulfill his command to preach the Gospel to all nations. Billions are counting on us.
Amen.
