“I FEEL a bit, a bit like Mary, the mother of Jesus standing at the foot of the Cross and watching what's happening and you just wish it would stop. We can't stop it, so there’s that kind of feeling of helplessness and because there's nothing that Mary could do to stop what's happened to Jesus and what can we do to stop what's happening in Gaza?

“WE ACTUALLY got a lot of a lot of help from Frank Sinatra would you believe? He became one of our benefactors.” Missionary priests and religious sisters have an uncanny ability to downplay extraordinary titbits or stories from their time on mission, but this one took the biscuit and when interviewing Spiritan Father, Fr John McFadden, I had to get him to elaborate on this particular anecdote about Old Blue Eyes supporting the Church in Nigeria.

DEAR brothers and sisters, for World Mission Day 2026, which marks the centenary of a celebration established by Pope Pius XI that is very dear to the Church, I have chosen the theme 'One in Christ, united in mission.'

WITH centenary celebrations planned this year to mark the anniversary of the establishment of World Mission Sunday, as well as the 110th anniversary of the founding of the Pontifical Missionary Union and the 200th anniversary of the creation of the Living Rosary Association, it was perhaps fitting that 2026 began with a small but poignant celebration of Blessed Pauline Jaricot, the foundress of the Pontifical Society for the Propagation of the Faith.

MISSION month 2025 may have come to and end but already the theme for next year's World Mission Sunday has been released by the Vatican.