Poster contest, special Mass at Shrine part of Archdiocese of Detroit's celebration of missions following pope's declaration

DETROIT — One hundred years after Pope Benedict XV called upon missionaries of the world to have their eyes fixed on Christ when spreading the Gospel, Pope Francis is urging Catholics to do the same in 2019.

Pope Francis declared October 2019 Extraordinary Missionary Month, in recognition of the men and women who have given their time, and in many instances their lives, bringing the saving grace of Jesus to the ends of the earth.

“I hope that all communities will devote the necessary effort to advancing along the path of a pastoral and missionary conversion that cannot leave things as they presently are,” Pope Francis wrote to the world’s bishops. “'Mere administration’ can no longer be enough. The renewal of structures demanded by pastoral conversion can only be understood in this light: as part of an effort to make them more mission-oriented, to make ordinary pastoral activity on every level more inclusive and open, to inspire in pastoral works a constant desire to go forth and in this way to elicit a positive response from all those whom Jesus summons to friendship with Himself.”

The announcement of Extraordinary Missionary Month comes in commemoration of Pope Benedict XV’s Maximum Illud, an apostolic exhortation written in 1919 instructing missionaries from politically charged Europe to put aside their nationalistic ties and rivalries and focus on proclaiming Christ to native populations around the world.

To celebrate Extraordinary Missionary Month, and to commemorate the Archdiocese of Detroit’s own missionary heritage that began in 1701, Detroit Archbishop Allen H. Vigneron will celebrate a special World Mission Sunday Mass at 12:30 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 20, at the National Shrine of the Little Flower Basilica in Royal Oak.

The archdiocesan celebrations coincide with celebrations around the world, said Sr. Rose Marie Kujawa, CSSF, delegate for religious and consecrated life for the Archdiocese of Detroit.

“One hundred years after Maximum Illud, Pope Francis says this is the time for us to renew our zeal to be missionary in life and call for a renewal of missionary activity and understanding of what it means to be missionary,” Sr. Kujawa said. “One of the things that has come from this initiative is a book, Baptized and Sent, a theological, scriptural book on what it means to be a missionary, and it includes the biographies of saints and blesseds who died while being on mission.”

Sr. Kujawa said the martyrs recognized in Baptized and Sent are all from living memory, showing the Church still has men and women who go to great ends to preach Christ, paying the ultimate price.

During the Oct. 20 Mass at National Shrine of the Little Flower Basilica, parishioners from across the Archdiocese of Detroit are invited to dress in native clothing to celebrate the various cultures that have been elevated by the Church’s missions.

“In the last four years, the archdiocese has celebrated this Mass at parishes across the archdiocese with Catholics dressing in native clothing to symbolize the Catholic Church is a universal Church,” Sr. Kujawa said.

Poster contest open to students

The Mass will feature intercessions from various languages used in Masses in the Archdiocese of Detroit, along with a revealing of the winners of a poster contest for schools, religious education programs and religious communities in the archdiocese celebrating World Mission Sunday.

The poster contest is divided into two divisions: First through third grades and fourth through eight grades. The PIME Mission Center will judge the posters, and the winners will be notified and encouraged to be present at the World Mission Sunday Mass, where all the posters will be displayed.

Sr. Kujawa said Pope Benedict XV’s message on the importance of missionaries is taken from the Gospel of St. Mark, when Christ told the apostles to, “Go into the whole world, and preach the Gospel to all creation.”

“That is what Benedict XV was referring to, preaching to the whole world,” Sr. Kujawa said. “This was the first major document to discuss what it means to be a missionary. Up to that point, the Church didn’t concentrate in the same way on missionary activity. But in this document, Benedict XV is telling these missionaries to break from their Eurocentric and colonialist thought and make missionary activity a faith-based effort.”

Sr. Kujawa said Benedict XV’s message still applies in 2019 in Detroit, where the archdiocese is called to “undergo a missionary conversion.”

In a message to priests and religious of the archdiocese, Archbishop Vigneron directly linked Pope Francis’ call to cast aside an “administration mindset” to the Archdiocese of Detroit’s quest to “completely overhaul the DNA” of the Church in southeast Michigan.

“I see the Holy Father’s request as a confirmation of the path upon which we have started,” Archbishop Vigneron wrote. “The work to ‘Unleash the Gospel,’ in Detroit has been inspired by the same Spirit which animates the universal Church.

“I see this as additional encouragement and impetus to action,” Archbishop Vigneron continued. “I know this will be hard work. Pope Francis knows this will be hard work. We are already beginning to see more concretely what ‘necessary effort’ this transformation will entail. Faced with the challenges these changes will bring, we may experience subtle temptations to fall into old habits of ‘mere administration.’ But the Holy Father himself is encouraging us: keep it up. Stay the course. Be faithful to Jesus’ mandate.”

To that end, Sr. Kujawa said, “staying the course” means keeping the same zeal Pope Benedict XV prescribed in Maximum Illud 100 years ago, to bring Christ to the culture that surrounds the missionary, no matter where they roam.

“Christ’s message always transforms the best of the culture,” Sr. Kujawa said. “There is always some part of the culture that is not going to conform to Christ, but when the message of the Gospel is preached, the faithful discern what they may have to give up in order to embrace the message of Christ, and what parts of their culture are sanctified by Christ.

“In our local situation, that means as missionary disciples, we’re not trying to impose our religious cultures on others,” Sr. Kujawa said. “Rather, we are presenting Christ to other cultures, and when the two mesh, the culture changes with Christ, without watering down the message of Christ.”