World Mission Sunday collection an opportunity to help spread the Good News worldwide

The Catholic faithful of the archdiocese are invited to join with Pope Francis and fellow Catholics throughout the world to help spread the Good News of Jesus to the ends of the earth.

It’s the annual World Mission Sunday collection, set for weekend Masses Oct. 22-23 throughout the Omaha archdiocese.

The worldwide collection supports the work of more than 1,100 mission dioceses, funding catechetical programs, seminaries, religious communities, communication projects and building of churches, chapels, schools and orphanages, among other projects, while also assisting the poor through food, medical care, education and other aid.

This year’s theme, “You shall be my witnesses” (Acts 1:8), expresses Pope Francis’ wish that Catholics around the world embrace the missionary call of Jesus to his disciples.

He wrote in his message for World Mission Day that “every Christian is called to be a missionary and witness to Christ. And the Church, the community of Christ’s disciples, has no other mission than that of bringing the Gospel to the entire world by bearing witness to Christ. To evangelize is the very identity of the Church.”

He also wrote that “the example of a Christian life and the proclamation of Christ are inseparable. One is at the service of the other.”

“Christ’s Church will continue to ‘go forth’ towards new geographical, social and existential horizons, towards ‘borderline’ places and human situations, in order to bear witness to Christ and his love to men and women of every people, culture and social status,” the pope wrote.

Each year, 91% of money raised by the collection goes to the Society for the Propagation of the Faith with the rest going to the Catholic Near East Welfare Association, with both organizations distributing the funds in their entirety to areas in greatest need.

Last year, the collection in the archdiocese raised $91,485.

In 1926 Pope Pius XI instituted World Mission Sunday for the whole Church, with the first worldwide Mission Sunday collection taking place in October 1927. 

The Mission Sunday collection is always taken up on the next to last weekend of October.