On behalf His Excellency, Most Rev. Bishop Earl K. Fernandes, I would like to welcome Missionaries who are eagerly waiting to share their stories and mission activities with our faithful. The Missions Office promotes the universal missionary life of the Church and serves as the resource center for mission animation, education, and awareness. We thank you for the immense help which provides pastoral ministries, catechetical programs, and build new churches in mission territories. The Mission Appeal program provides a way to centralize the efforts of missionary organizations from around the world who wish to appeal to our Diocese. Your financial support for the missions brings the expansion of the reign of Christ who shed His Blood for all mankind.
I quote the words of our Holy Father, “The Good News that we are sent to proclaim to the world is not an abstract ideal; it is the Gospel of God’s faithful love, which became flesh in the face and life of Jesus Christ. The mission of the disciples and the Church as a whole is to continue the mission of Christ in the Holy Spirit: a mission born of love, lived in love, and leading to love.” (Pope Leo XIV, Journey with the Pope, Saturday, April 25, 2026). Jesus commissioned to the Apostles to go and proclaim the Good News to the ends of the earth. Jesus was a missionary and sent by God the Father for redeeming us from sin and eternal death. As Jesus was sending forth the missions to His disciples by empowering with Holy Spirit and said, “As the Father has sent me, so I send you” ((John 20:21). Missionaries very often leave family, friends, and familiar surroundings. They are sent to an unfamiliar context and culture.
As we getting to know the mission of the Church, we understand that the history of the Church in Asia is as old the Church. The Apostles were born in an embraced a culture of the continent of Asia, in Western Asia. Our planet contains more than 6 billion people. All Christian is almost 2 billion. 3/2 of the people do not believe in Jesus Christ. 60% of the world populations are in Asian Continent. 85 % of people are non- Christians. Asia is the cradle of the world’s major religions. In a worldwide more than 1.3 billion Muslims, 850 Hindus and 418 Buddhists. Number of Catholics will be over 1 million. Let us ponder the words of Pope John XXIII, “No one today in a world where distance no longer counts can give the excuse that the needs of his faraway brother are not known to him, nor can one say that the task of helping his brother is not his concern”. We can together carry out the missions of the Church and continue to be foster and transform many in the light of Christ, who commanded us to spread the Gospel to the whole world. We also have to foster vocations who are consecrated for the work of Gospel. Let us humbly serve Christ to promote His kingdom.
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The annual Missionary Cooperation Plan (MCP) will be held at every parish in our diocese on month of May to September. Missionaries are coming every year from all parts of the world, to our diocese for the mission appeal. They are mostly from Africa and Asia. This year, more than 250 mission organizations applied / requested through online registration for the mission appeal. However, we have chosen 60 missionaries by our diocesan criteria. They will be preaching in their assigned parishes on the assigned weekends in our parishes. Thanks to all Pastors, for accepting this appeal to your parishes. They are remarkable number of priests, religious, and laity who inflamed with the zeal for souls and do the ministry for the greater glory of Christ.
In fact, universal fraternity is necessary for everyone. Jesus reminds us that what we do to the “least of others” we do to Him (Mat: 25:31-46). Jesus is the companion of the poor, the hungry, the stranger, the immigrant, the sick, the imprisoned, the misunderstood. Let us hear the cry of the poor and console them by our act of charity. I pray that may our act of love be genuine, fruitful, and glorify God through our self-giving to others with what God stored in our lives. We can offer our sickness, pain, penance, prayers for the missionaries and it will worth it because our offerings accompany them and it make them effective in their proclamation of the Gospel. The redemptive value of suffering provides them heavenly graces.
We are so grateful to the faithful in our diocese for your continued support for the universal missionary activity of the Church. Every Year, you have responded generously to missionaries who visited your parishes in summer time (May – to September) through the missionary Cooperation Plan (MCP). Let us foster the global mission, where the church is persecuted, vulnerable and young. Please be generous in your contribution, as you continue to touch many hearts in the name of Christ!
Our Lady Queen of Missions, pray for us!
