After separate missionary trips to Alaska, India, Jamaica and Kenya, four witnesses of Christ in others and of his love in their own lives share some of their experiences of the universal Church with The Catholic Spirit this World Mission Sunday.
Actions do speak louder than words. People inspire me and teach me more by how they live than by what they say. Actions also give meaning to the words we speak. I think this is especially true in giving witness to Christ.
While on an immersion and service trip to the tiny, remote village of Galena, Alaska, Dianne LaScotte approached an older resident outside St. John Berchman church to thank her for sharing her life story at a parish event. The woman, an elder in the Athabascan Indian community to which most of the village’s 470 residents belong, responded with curiosity, “Why are you here?”
When Marta Pereira visited St. Antony’s Pilgrim Shrine during an immersion trip to the Diocese of Vijayapuram in India, she was awed by the thousands of faithful who gathered for the sacraments and eucharistic adoration on a Tuesday, the Church’s traditional day to honor and pray to the saint.
A forlorn-looking woman standing outside her small shack near Mandeville, Jamaica, caught the eye of the van driver who was taking Grant Rabuse and nine others from the archdiocese to a mission site in the south-central Diocese of Mandeville.
All the meetings Debbie Keller attended in Kitui, Kenya, during a Center for Mission partnership trip started in a surprising way — whether they were about community building and resources or gatherings with local women.
Christian patriarchs and heads of churches in Jerusalem noted "with grave concern" British Prime Minister Liz Truss' call for her government to review moving the British Embassy to Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.