A Hundred Years of Mission Sunday
World Mission Sunday 2026 is the hundredth anniversary of Mission Sunday. It is a hundred years since Pope Pius XI established World Mission Sunday in 1926. It was established to foster universal church unity, encourage global missionary zeal, and create an annual collection to financially support mission territories worldwide.
As we reflect on the mission of the church, I am reminded of Archbishop Robert Casey’s reflection as he introduced himself to the archdiocese of Cincinnati in the midst of the “Beacons of Light” initiative. "Beacons of Light" is a reorganization of parishes to address the changing reality of fewer priests and fewer people in the pews. In his reflection, he drew a contrast between the “Age of Christendom” and the “Apostolic Age.” His point was that we need to move from the Age of Christendom to the Apostolic Age. Initially, people were a little confused. Why is Christendom not desirable? After all, wasn't it the Age when Catholicism spread across the world?
The sense in which the Age of Christendom is contrasted with the Apostolic age is a reference to the social context in which the Church finds herself. In the Age of Christendom, the Church was at the center of villages, towns, cities, and nations. The center of power and influence was the Church. Especially in Europe, the Church and political powers were synonymous. Faraway lands and indigenous peoples became missionary territory. Colonial powers ventured into distant continents to expand power, amass wealth, and also spread the gospel. Often, these three things meant the same thing.
The Apostolic Age refers to different social context. It refers to the Church immediately after the resurrection and Pentecost. In the apostolic age, the Church was on the peripheries of society. It was humble, powerless, and persecuted. Yet it was fearless, focused, and vibrant. The church was not centered on buildings, wealth, and influence. It is centered around the gospel of Christ crucified. The church grew and the gospel spread like wildfire, not because of brute power, great wealth, or boundless influence, but by the power of the Holy Spirit at work in the Church.
When Archbishop Casey contrasted the Age of Christendom from an Apostolic age, he was referring to today’s world in which God, Church, and religion are not at the center of society. Rather, the Church has been pushed to the periphery. However, according to him, our attitudes have not shifted. We still try to operate with the mentality of the age of Christendom. And it is not working. One of the greatest implications is seen in church membership and attendance. The empty pews we see in Churches, the shortage of priests, and the lack of influence the Church has in social and economic policymaking are all signs. In this context, not just the Archbishop, but theologians and ecclesiologists are trying to convince the Church to move from the ‘attitudes’ of the age of Christendom to the ‘spirit’ of the Apostolic age.
As we approach Mission Sunday 2026 as a Church in the Apostolic age, I remember Archbishop Casey saying, “the situation in which we find ourselves is indeed a challenge. But even more, it is an opportunity.” Let me lay out three implications for Mission Sunday in 2026.
Missionaries in the Apostolic Age
In an age of Christendom, missionaries were priests and nuns who gave up their families, their lands, and their homes to go away to faraway places to preach the gospel and convert the pagans. In the apostolic age, every Catholic, you and I, each one of us is a missionary. The good thing about being a missionary today is that we do not have to go to far away lands to be missionaries. The moment we step out of this Church, we are in mission territory. Often, our own families are mission territory. Our workplaces, our schools, and are neighborhoods are all mission territories.
The first practical implication is that we must cease to define a missionary only as someone out there. While that is also true, we all are missionaries here and now.
Missionary Activity in the Apostolic Age
What does missionary activity look like in the apostolic age? In the age of Christendom, the focus was on conversion, proselytization, and changing the entire culture of the peoples the missionaries encountered. Sometimes even force and violence were used. Most recently, both Pope Francis and Pope Leo have preached against understanding missionary work as proselytization and conversion. According to Pope Francis, proselytizing is aggressive, coercive, or propaganda-driven attempts to increase Church membership.
The second practical implication is that we get away from the mentality of the age of Christendom, where the focus is on winning “one more soul for Christ” through arguments, competition, comparisons, condemning other faith traditions, demeaning other cultures, and sometimes even through violence and war. We need to focus less on converting people but rather focus on being “missionary disciples.”
Missionary Discipleship
Pope Francis’ idea of “Missionary Discipleship” is the best way to understand missionary work in the Apostolic Age. Missionary discipleship does not focus on converting people, but rather, on bearing witness to the love of Jesus Christ. Missionary activity is not a war, but rather, entering into a loving dialogue with one another. We are not conquerors, but rather, humble servants of the gospel. A missionary disciple knows that his or her work is to bear witness to the love of Jesus Christ, but that it is God who transforms hearts.
The third practical implication, then, is that we think of ourselves as missionary disciples; as earthen vessels (2 Cor 4:7), carrying in our bodies the death and resurrection of the Lord and bearing witness to the love he showed us. Our mission today is not to covert people, but rather, to touch hearts.
Mission Sunday 2026 is calling us to go beyond the original goal of Mission Sunday. Whereas the universal unity of the Church, global missionary zeal, and the resources needed for mission all are important factors, the call of Mission Sunday 2026 is to realize that in the Apostolic Age, missionary discipleship is the key to the encounter between the Gospel and the world.
Fr. Satish Joseph
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