I first felt the call to mission as a college student studying in Italy. I began that semester with a pilgrimage to Assisi and Siena. While in Assisi, walking on cobblestone streets among the medieval churches, I fell in love with Saints Francis and Clare and their devotion to the marginalized and outcast.

Soon I was grappling with a new idea God planted in my heart. By the time the semester ended and I returned to the United States, I knew I was being called to serve in international mission.

My missiology education began when I was accepted to serve with Franciscan Mission Service, an organization that for more than 30 years has prepared and supported lay Catholics to serve for two to six years in service opportunities in solidarity with impoverished and marginalized communities across the globe. 

During my three-month-long formation program with Franciscan Mission Service, I learned about living in community, Catholic social teaching, solidarity, inculturation, and accompaniment. But nothing could completely equip me for the realities of international mission. 

I was sent to Guatemala City, Guatemala to serve at Valley of the Angels, a needs-based boarding school. For two years, I lived and worked on Valley’s campus with 200 children and teens.

Many people ask me what I “did” at Valley of the Angels. While I had various formal roles and responsibilities on campus, I mainly focused on accompanying people and being a person they could trust. I am forever changed by the experiences I had while accompanying the people I am now privileged to call my friends. 

Early in his papacy, Pope Francis spoke to the bishops of Brazil, and explained accompaniment in the context of the disciples on the road to Emmaus, “…we need a Church capable of walking at people’s side, of doing more than simply listening to them; a Church which accompanies them on their journey; a Church able to make sense of the ‘night’ contained in the flight of so many of our brothers and sisters from Jerusalem; a Church which realizes that the reasons why people leave also contain reasons why they can eventually return. But we need to know how to interpret, with courage, the larger picture. Jesus warmed the hearts of the disciples of Emmaus.”

Pope Francis then said, “I would like all of us to ask ourselves today: are we still a Church capable of warming hearts? A Church capable of leading people back to Jerusalem? Of bringing them home?”  

My mission program placed a strong emphasis on “life-long mission.” We do not have to travel around the world to serve on mission. We can live out our baptismal call to be missionaries by ministering to people in our own families and communities. In today’s divided world, this kind of service is necessary and our witness to Christ’s love can bring people together and help others heal.

Pope Francis tells us, “This missionary mandate touches us personally: I am a mission, always; you are a mission, always; every baptized man and woman is a mission. People in love never stand still: they are drawn out of themselves; they are attracted and attract others in turn; they give themselves to others and build relationships that are life-giving.”  

My international experience led to my role in the Archdiocese’s Office of Missions. The Office of Missions supports mission activity in the archdiocese and globally through programming, collaborations with mission organizations, and appeals. This year on October 22 we will celebrate World Mission Sunday and join Catholics worldwide in an annual Eucharistic celebration for the missions of the Church. 

Pope Francis declared that the theme of this year’s celebration is, “Hearts on fire, feet on the move” (Luke 24:13-35) which reminds us that we live out our baptismal call of mission when we are witnesses to God’s love and mercy. He invites us to focus on three themes for World Mission Sunday: The Word transforming hardened hearts, the Eucharist as the source and summit of mission, and the joy of spreading the Good News. 

In his World Mission Sunday message, Pope Francis said, “Today more than ever, our human family, wounded by so many situations of injustice, so many divisions and wars, is in need of the Good News of peace and salvation in Christ.” 

During this year’s World Mission Sunday, you can support the Church’s missions around the world through prayers and financial gifts. Your offering of these spiritual and temporal resources will help ensure that our brothers and sisters around the world will experience the joy and hope of the encounter with Christ. I hope that World Mission Sunday inspires you to create opportunities for accompaniment and moves you to share your faith so you can “bear witness to the life that never dies, even in the most difficult of situations and in the darkest of moments.” 

(Maeve Gilheney-Gallagher serves as the Global Solidarity Coordinator in the Office of Missions of The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington.)