PHILADELPHIA (OSV News) — In the weeks surrounding World Mission Sunday, observed Oct. 20 this year, Catholic kids from coast to coast have been supporting missions through prayers and donations.
“When we’re talking about missions and when we’re asking kids to pray, it’s the looks on their faces when they have that ‘aha!’ moment about something that they can do,” Michele Meiers, assistant director for the Pontifical Mission Societies in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, told OSV News.
Instituted in 1926 by Pope Pius XI, the annual observance of World Mission Sunday is designed to encourage Catholics to prayerfully and financially support global evangelization efforts.
In 1922, Pope Pius XI named four existing organizations as pontifical mission societies, which together now aid some 1,110 mission dioceses throughout the world. Within the network known formally as the Pontifical Mission Societies, the Society for the Propagation of the Faith supports the evangelization efforts of the local church, the Missionary Childhood Association educates children about their part in the church’s missionary outreach, the Society of St. Peter the Apostle trains the next generation of missionary clergy and consecrated religious, and the Pontifical Missionary Union focuses on forming clergy, religious and pastoral leaders more deeply in their role as evangelizers.
The collection taken up on World Mission Sunday forms the primary financial support for the Pontifical Mission Societies, with U.S. Catholics donating about 40% of the funds distributed globally.
In the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, hundreds of Catholic school and religious education students recently celebrated raising close to $86,000 for the Missionary Childhood Association during the 2023-2024 year.
Among the projects funded by the MCA collection is the Center for Child Development in Ghana. Located in that country’s Navrongo-Bolgatanga Diocese, the center provides meals, education and family reintegration for children living in the streets.
Meiers said the MCA “promotes the development of a missionary spirit in children worldwide.”
“Students learn about their own call to reach out to others in need, leading them to share their own spiritual and material benefits,” she told OSV News.
In the Philadelphia aArchdiocese, Meiers and her team offer about 70 presentations over the course of the school year, reaching 10,000 students — and in some instances their families as well — with “an inspiring mission message,” she said.
“The students are encouraged to give up something for others and make donations in mite boxes,” said Meiers, noting that “over the past few years, students and faithful families in Philadelphia have donated an average of $74,000 annually to the MCA.”
Along with giving, “students are asked to pray one Hail Mary daily for mission children,” said Meiers.
But the prayer doesn’t stop there, she added.
“In Philadelphia, we augment this request of one Hail Mary daily and encourage praying the World Mission Rosary,” said Meiers.
The multicolored chaplet was launched in 1951 by now-Venerable Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, who served from 1950-1966 as national director of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith.
The archbishop’s aim was to dedicate each decade to a particular area in the world, with green representing Africa; blue, the Pacific Islands; white, Europe; red, the Americas; and yellow, Asia.
Praying this rosary, said Archbishop Sheen, would “aid the Holy Father and his Society for the Propagation of the Faith by supplying him with practical support, as well as prayers, for the poor mission territories of the world.”
More than half of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia’s school students assemble World Mission Rosaries, said Meiers, with about 5,700 chaplets made during the 2023-2024 academic year.
The rosaries are then “given to visiting missionaries to take to the students in the communities they serve,” she said.
“Additionally, many students in our schools and parishes make a second rosary to keep so that they can pray for mission children and their families,” Meiers told OSV News. “It is beautiful to know that mission children with rosaries made in Philadelphia are praying for our children, and that the faith-filled students in Philadelphia are praying for the mission children.”
After years of working for the Pontifical Mission Societies, Meiers said she’s still amazed by the enthusiasm of kids for sharing their faith far and wide.
“When you encounter someone and you’re talking to them about Jesus, regardless of their age, and when you realize they get it and they want to hear more — that’s what really keeps you going,” she said.
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