Author: Nathalie Godet

Dear Friends,

Over one billion Catholics all over the world observe today as World Mission Sunday. This annual observance was instituted in 1926 by a Papal decree issued by Pope Pius XI. Every year since then, the universal Church has dedicated the month of October to reflection on and prayer for the missions. On World Mission Sunday, Catholics gather to celebrate the Eucharist and to contribute to a collection for the work of evangelization around the world.

Why does the Church give so much importance to World Mission Sunday? The Acts of Apostles gives a very good answer: “We cannot but speak about what we have seen and heard” (Acts 4:20). The Apostles were following the missionary mandate that Jesus gave us all to go and proclaim the good news to all creation (Matthew 28:19-20). This annual celebration gives us a chance to reflect on the importance of missionary works for the life of the Church. It reminds us that we are one with the universal Church and that we are all committed to carrying on the mission of Christ, however different our situations may be.

You know that I myself was a missionary in the north-eastern Indian State of Nagaland and you have heard me sharing my missionary experiences. But when I came to this country, I was quite surprised to hear that there were missionary regions in the USA. “Home Missions” is the name for dioceses and parishes in the United States, including its territories and former territories, which cannot provide basic pastoral services to Catholics without outside help. Basic pastoral services include Mass and sacraments, religious education, and ministry training for priests, deacons, religious sisters and lay people.

For many decades, the Church in the United States has sent missionaries overseas to serve the people of Latin America, Africa, Asia, and Oceania. The home missions are dioceses and parishes here in the United States that need the same kind of support. Surprisingly, according to the USCCB, “the Catholic Church is poorly established in many parts of our country, especially Appalachia, the South, the Southwest along the Mexican border, the Rocky Mountain States, Alaska, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, and remote island chains like the Marshalls and the Carolines in the Pacific.” Generally speaking, the home missions are everywhere that Catholics are few and the Church is fragile. Here’s just one example:

In Montana, the Diocese of Great Falls-Billings has 99 parishes and missions stretching over 90,000 square miles. Many priests in this diocese serve multiple parishes – some serve up to five! Many parishes cannot meet the financial obligations of having a full-time priest and communities often feel disconnected from the larger Church.

So, when the World Mission Sunday rightly raises our awareness of the worldwide missionary efforts in the world outside of the United States, let us not forget the missionary regions closer home in our own country.

Your brother in Christ,

Fr. Abraham Orapankal

Saints of October- Respect Life Month

During the month of October the church celebrates the lives of great saints who teach us respect for all life. Among these are Saint Francis of Assisi (Oct 4) , Saint John XXIII (Oct 11) and Saint John Paul II (Oct 22) .

Francis of Assisi (1181—1226) is among the most beloved of all the saints. He had a deep love for all creation and showed particular love for the poor, the sick and the outcasts. He befriended lepers, beggars, birds and wild beasts alike. Francis knew that all life is a gift from God and so he gave thanks for the beauty and goodness found in all creatures, especially in the human person.

Saint John XXIII , Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli (1881—1963), was elected pope in 1958. He called for and presided over the first sessions of the Second Vatican Council. This ever smiling, always jolly, portly man wrote a powerful encyclical letter, Pacem in Terris, in which he addresses issues about life. “Man has the right to live. He has the right to bodily integrity and to the means necessary to the proper development of life, particularly food, clothing, shelter, medical care , rest and finally the necessary social services” ( #11). But for each right the pope listed, he also listed a corresponding duty. “The right to live involves the duty to preserve one’s life; the right to a decent standard of living , the duty to live in a becoming fashion; the right to be free to seek out the truth , the duty to devote oneself to an ever deeper and wider search for it.” The right to life involves all of us and places on us a duty to work to support all life.

The most recent of these great saints, Pope John Paul II, Karol Jozef Wojtyla (1920-2005), was elected pope in 1978. He holds the record for the most traveled and one of the longest serving popes of all time. Among several great Encyclical letters he wrote is Evangelium Vitae, The gospel of life . “We are facing an enormous and dramatic clash between good and evil, death and life, the culture of death and the culture of life. We find ourselves not only faced with but necessarily in the midst of this conflict: we are all involved and we also share in it, with inescapable responsibility of choosing to be unconditionally pro-life”. Speaking to a group of ambassadors in 2000 Pope John Paul said, “A society will be judged on the basis of how it treats its weakest members; and among the most vulnerable are surely the unborn and the dying”.. By his very life and in his dying, Pope John Paul II showed us the proper attitude we must have towards God’s gift of life.

These three saints, whose feast days we observe in October, are wonderful models and teachers about the dignity of human life and remind us of our duty to work to protect all human life from conception to natural death .

Msgr. Brennan

Dear Friends,

We, the priests of the Diocese of Metuchen, will gather in Spring Lakes, NJ, for the annual convocation this Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. It is a special time for the priests and bishop to pray together, reflect on our priesthood, share the challenges we face and enjoy priestly fellowship. This is a great opportunity for us to come together and experience a sense of unity, even though we’re all different. There will be enrichment sessions with a guest speaker. We will participate in many other events such as Holy Hour, Mass, Vespers, socials, dinner, etc.

Both Msgr. Seamus Brennan and I will be attending this gathering of priests. That means there will be no Mass in our church this coming Wednesday and Thursday. Thank you to our senior Deacon Ron Caimi who has graciously agreed to conduct a Communion Service at 8 am on these two days. This can be a reminder to us about the pastoral reality of priests’ shortage that we are facing as a nation.

During my nationwide travels as a presenter for RENEW International to promote small groups of faith sharing, I have come across many priests who were pastors of two or more parishes. The highest percentages of such multiple parish pastoring are found in states like Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota, where over 50% of the priests serve more than one parish. The lowest percentages (less than 10%) were in New Jersey, the District of Columbia, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Nevada. Multi-pastoring parishes will not be having weekday Masses on a regular basis. Here at St. Matthias, and in New Jersey in general, we have been very blessed to have the gift of daily Mass for those who wish to attend. We thank God for this blessing.

But we, as a Catholic Community, have to address the problem of the priest shortage. How are we going to continue our sacramental availability? Who is going to take responsibility? It cannot be just left in the hands of church authorities. Or it just can’t be left to mere prayers for an increase in vocations to priesthood, diaconate and religious life, though prayer is essential as Jesus himself said: “ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” (Matthew 9:38). We need to do more, especially to help our people in the pews understand what is happening, challenging them to fully live out their baptismal call, and providing formation for them to participate more fully in the church’s mission.

I am very happy that our parish lay leadership has initiated the St. Matthias Vocations Ministry. Its leaders have been making efforts to bring to us the understanding that the primary vocation for us all is to be holy. As we respond to that call to holiness in our own calling, we need to be on the lookout for young men whom we could encourage to consider vocations to the priesthood. As you must have already heard or read in the bulletin, our Vocations ministry is planning a retreat on November 13. We will have reflections from a priest, deacon, nun, married and single persons. I invite us all to consider spending this half-day to enrich our own vocation to be holy and encourage one another as we need to heed the call of Jesus.

Your brother in Christ,

Fr. Abraham Orapankal