During this month of October, through the prayer of the Rosary, we place ourselves in the hands of Mary, just as she hastened to the hill country to visit her relative Elizabeth—both to serve her and to share with her the marvellous things that God was doing in her and through her. In the same way, together with her, we too run through the streets of the world as we commemorate the 99th World Mission Day.
In this Jubilee Year, this journey as pilgrims of hope must lead us to become missionaries ofhope. Because how can one truly say they have encountered the Lord and experienced the sweetness of His mercy and love, if that encounter does not overflow outward—if the return journey from the pilgrimage does not become a path filled with hope, lighting the flame of hope wherever it passes?
Therefore, this year the Church is inviting us to be:
Missionaries of Hope Among all Peoples
Pope Francis, Message for World Mission Day, 25 January 2025
What does this mean? It means that, “In following Christ the Lord, Christians are called to hand on the Good News by sharing the concrete life situations of those whom they meet, and thus to be bearers and builders of hope” (ibid.).
It means that, in practice, we live what the Second Vatican Council powerfully affirmed: that “the joys and hopes, the grief and anguish of the people of our time, especially of those who are poor or afflicted, are the joys and hopes, the grief and anguish of the followers of Christ as well. Nothing that is genuinely human fails to find an echo in their hearts” (Gaudium et Spes, par. 1).
Let us then, with all this in our hearts—our joys and sorrows, but also the joys and sorrows of all humanity—turn to the Lord Jesus, who in His great mercy has given us new birth into a living hope through His resurrection from the dead (cf. 1 Pt 1:3), and let us run with Him through the streets of the world.
Let us turn to Him to drink from the source of life that is His Word and the Sacraments, so that the hope we offer may be the hope we ourselves have received from God. And, like Him, let us offer it simply to others, by bringing them the same comfort that God gives us (cf. 2 Cor 1:3-4).
We must once again place our hope in Him, and from this foundation, we will truly be able to go out to all nations, so that He alone may become the one true Hope of all humanity.