On World Mission Sunday, Father Gerry Hastie – the Vicar General of the Mill Hill Missionaries – shared his thoughts on being a follower of Jesus, and what it means to ‘invite everyone to the banquet’. What follows is his homily, which he delivered at Westminster Cathedral on 20 October 2024:

Jesus, in the Gospel, reminds us of what it means to be his follower. And it’s not to put ourselves first, to lord it over others. At the heart of being a disciple is being about service, giving witness to the love and mercy of God that we have received. Just as Jesus, through his life, gave witness to the Father’s mercy and poured out his life for us, we too are called to give witness to the Father’s mercy to all people.

This year, Pope Francis has chosen as a theme for World Mission Sunday ‘Go and invite everyone to the banquet.’ He takes this from Matthews Gospel in the parable of the Wedding Feast.

Come as you are

Jesus, in the Gospel, repeatedly uses the images of a meal or a banquet to indicate what the kingdom of God is about; what the kingdom of God is. And he shows that also through his actions as he sits and eats with tax collectors and sinners.

Jesus shows us that God’s concern is for all. No one is excluded from God’s table. No one is excluded from the banquet. Saint and sinner alike – and we’re all a mixture of both – none of us are excluded from that table.

As missionary disciples, as followers of Jesus, we are called to continue this mission – to give witness, to go out and to invite – reaching out, especially to those on the margins; to those who are often excluded or experienced rejection; to those who have not yet heard the Good News, in order for all to have the opportunity to sit at the one table and be nourished by the One Bread.

The most precious banquet

I worked in east Africa for 17 years in Uganda and Kenya. During that time, I had the privilege of sharing many meals in different places in different locations. Sometimes this was sitting around a table, at other times sitting on the ground around a pot. But when I look back on those 17 years, to me, the most precious banquet that I experienced involved a small bottle of soda and two boiled eggs.

In the first mission I was appointed to, I was asked one day to go to one of the outstations – we had 17 outstations – to take Communion to the sick and to the housebound.

And I went first to the home of the leader of the small Christian community – an elderly lady called Sarah. And from her home, we set off at around 1:00 in the afternoon when the sun was still high to visit the sick and the housebound under her care.

Everyone invited

As we moved from home to home, we prayed and we distributed Communion. After an hour and a half or so, a group of young children (known to Sarah) began to accompany us – singing hymns as we went from home to home and leading the prayers through opening the prayers with a hymn. It was really joyful and a very moving experience.

But after about 3 hours of moving from home to home, when the list didn’t seem to diminish, I began to feel tired and very thirsty because the sun was still hot, and I had forgotten to bring any water. So, the only thing that occupied my mind by that time was something to drink to quench this thirst. But it would be an hour later, at 5 o’clock, before we finally completed all the visitations and returned to the home of Sarah.

When we entered her compound, she invited me to sit down on a stool under a tree. She then entered her home – a very simple building of one room with mudbrick walls and grass thatch roof – and as she came out, she was carrying a small bottle of soda and two hard-boiled eggs. She invited me to eat and to drink, but because of the thirst, I hungrily drank down half the bottle of soda before I paused… I became aware of seven or eight sets of eyes standing round and staring at me. Some of the children who had accompanied us had also come to the compound and they were also thirsty. So, I passed the bottle to them and each of them took a sip until the bottle was emptied.

Encountering Jesus in the banquet

But then there were the two boiled eggs. I asked Sarah if she would like to share one of the eggs and she insisted no, they were for me.  She then told me to eat one and then she invited the children to sit down, and she broke open the shell of the egg and divided the egg into equal parts – each child receiving something of the egg. I can truly say, that in that moment, I experienced Jesus through the actions of Sarah as she broke open and distributed that egg.

There are many people in so many different parts of the world, like Sarah, who seek out and witness God’s love and concern for all people; who try to ensure that of the sick and the housebound under their care, none of them are excluded from receiving the One Bread. Sarah helped the children to receive something to eat, thinking nothing of herself.

There are many people throughout the world – lay people, catechists, Sisters and Priests – who are witnessing daily to God’s loving concern for all. They are trying to show, by their witness, that we are all truly beloved sons and daughters of God: no one excluded from his love. no one excluded from his table.

World Mission Sunday – a chance to invite everyone

On World Mission Sunday, every parish throughout the world collects money for Missio, which is the Pope’s own charity for mission. And Missio supports many churches throughout the world – young churches, new churches, churches that are struggling.

The faith is alive. People are witnessing, but these churches are not yet able to support themselves. So Missio supports them. It helps to support catechists and the training of Priests and Sisters; it supports schools and health centres, as well as making many simple daily tasks of parish and mission possible in so many different places.

Missio is one way in which we can show solidarity with our sisters and brothers throughout the world. We are able to show that we are truly one family: sons and daughters of the One God, manifesting God’s love and care most, especially to those on the margins, those who are often overlooked or forgotten, and to those who have not yet heard the Gospel, to ensure that no one feels excluded from God’s table.

How you help

I would like to thank you for your generosity for the many years of generosity, and your generosity and support for today’s appeal and responding to today’s appeal.

Your support, both through prayers and donations, makes daily mission work possible and brings hope to many communities. So, I’d like to thank you for that generous support, but I would also like to encourage you.

It’s not too late – you can donate to World Mission Sunday here>>

The appeal only comes one Sunday every year, but please remember to keep our missionaries and the people they are loving and serving, particularly in areas of conflict and persecution – keep them in your prayers.

We know from the news that there are many people at the moment, stuck in conflict and persecution, who are desperately in need of our prayers at this time. So let us keep all of them in our prayers.

We are all sons and daughters of God, the Father. We are all brothers and sisters in Christ. All of us are invited to the banquet; none of us excluded from that table. So let us keep one another in prayer and let us keep all our missionaries and those they serve in our prayers. Thank you.

It’s not too late – you can donate today to World Mission Sunday here>>