Missions Beyond the Work

This summer I had the opportunity to serve with Mission Youth in Cobá, México, alongside a group of Regnum Christi missionaries from around the states. Our main project was helping build a chapel, and each day began with prayer before we spent hours in the heat, carrying beams and bricks, mixing cement, painting, and doing whatever else was needed to move the project forward.

Although the work was physically demanding, it became much more than a construction project. The kindness of the people we met left just as much of an impression on me as the work itself. Every day, a different family welcomed us into their home for lunch, and in the afternoons we either played with the children in the town park or went door-to-door sharing the Gospel.

Since I spoke Spanish, I had the opportunity to lead one of the missionary groups, and one afternoon a woman named Dorita who helped manage the church invited us into her home to share her life story. That simple conversation reminded me that sometimes the most meaningful part of serving is taking the time to listen. Looking back, what stays with me most is the realization that years from now the people of Cobá may not remember our names or exactly who built their chapel, but they will continue to worship there and benefit from the work we left behind. That taught me that serving God is not about being recognized for what you do, but about giving your time and talents so that others can grow closer to Him.

It is a lesson I hope to carry with me long after this mission trip.

– Nico Mendoza

A Month of Mission in Paris

This summer, I had the blessing of serving as a missionary in Paris through ECYD Mission Corps. For one month, I worked alongside missionaries from around the world, leading camps for young girls, attending a pilgrimage, engaging in many fun activities, and seeing how the work we do can positively influence others’ views of Catholicism and God’s love.

My favorite experience of the month was the pilgrimage across 200 miles. From Paris, the pilgrimage group drove for two hours on a bus, and from the place we stopped, the journey began. From kids to priests, we biked across the countryside of France over the span of six days. During those six days, I saw God acting through many people, especially the middle schoolers who came with us.

We had a group of 12-year-old boys and girls who would light up everyone’s day just by waking up and being present. The boys would work as altar servers at every Mass and brought so much happiness to the group. While they were playful, they were also mature in their own way. They embraced the games the high schoolers welcomed them into and brought so much joy and energy to them, which really surprised me. Their attitudes toward the pilgrimage truly lit it up.

I will forever remember one boy. While I do not remember his name, I will always remember how included he made me feel. He was a little French boy who couldn’t speak much English, but he was learning Spanish in school. When he saw that the missionaries this year all spoke Spanish, he made a big effort to translate for us the things we didn’t understand. When the French people would speak rapidly in a way that was difficult for us to comprehend, he would move closer to us to explain what was going on and translate the best he could.

The small acts of kindness that might not have meant much to him are things I will carry with me throughout my life. His compassion and grace toward foreigners truly showed me God’s love. While many other high schoolers translated every so often, the effort this boy made to help me feel more comfortable in a place far from home will never go unnoticed for as long as I live.

The day the middle schoolers left, I felt a part of me leave with the little boys, as I watched them put up their thumb and pointer finger in the sign of a little heart, just the way we had taught them.

My Mission Month reminded me that Christ calls each of us to be His apostles wherever we are. I return home with a grateful heart, inspired by the friendships I made and eager to continue living the mission in my own community, showing God’s love to everyone just as this little boy showed me.

-Valentina Cordova

The Divine Comedy

This past August 1-10, I was able to do something I always love doing. I was able to bring a group of sixteen young adults from the parishes of St. Peter and St. Denis in Yonkers, and Our Lady of Mt. Carmel in the Bronx, to Quintana Roo, Mexico, for a door-to-door evangelization mission. The mission was organized in conjunction with Juventud Misionera (Mission Youth) and was supported in part by Catholic World Mission.

Why do I love organizing missions? The truth is, they can in many ways be a pain in the neck. Going into a mission, one already knows that any number of random, unforeseen, annoying things are going to take place. And that’s fine. It’s part of what makes a mission a “mission.”

A mission, in reality, has two goals. On the one hand, we are going somewhere in order to share the faith with people in a different part of the world. It’s not that the people in Quintana Roo aren’t Catholic. Of course they are (for the most part)! We’re not going there to proselytize anyone. We’re certainly not going because we think we’re somehow superior to them. We go because we want to share our own experience of the faith with the locals, and organize moments of prayer and liturgy together. When missionaries go house-to-house, they will inevitably encounter people who are away from the Church, or unable to go to the Church. They will hear stories of pain and loneliness, and will listen to them. They will bring a message of hope to those who may feel abandoned by God or Church. And, of course, there are those powerful moments in which we bring the Sacraments to people who may have been away from them for decades. It’s always amazing to see the miracles God works in the places where we do missions.

However, the primary goal for organizing missions is for what God does in the souls of the missionaries themselves. This is principally why I organize them. In the case of my young adults from New York, I wanted them to have a totally new kind of experience of the faith.

Many of them had experienced retreats, or praise & worship, or perhaps healing ministry. They have been to the big Catholic youth events, and heard the big Catholic speakers. All of that is great. But a mission is about giving more than receiving. Or better said, it’s about letting Christ use us, and letting ourselves simply be His hands, feet, tongues and hearts.

As such, a missionary doesn’t need to be a Bible scholar or a theologian. It’s nice if they are, but that’s all “extra.” A missionary is simply someone who gives God what they have, and lets Him use it however He wishes to reach souls.

We arrived to the Cancún airport the afternoon of August 1st, and the adventure was already beginning. Our time was budgeted so that we would be able to drive to the Shrine of Mary, Undoer of Knots (Santa Maria Desatanudos), celebrate Mass, pay a little visit, and then drive one-and-a-half hours to the town of Solferino. So, of course, our baggage took over an hour to arrive. Then, when we got to the parking lot to pick up our rental vans, one of them wasn’t working. We eventually did get it going, of course, but by this point, we were well behind schedule. We got into town a couple hours late, to the concern of the people in town who had been waiting for us. We were then able to set up shop at the school which would serve as “home” for the upcoming days. Everyone looked for a patch of classroom floor which they could claim as their own for the week. There were only two makeshift showers for the sixteen of us, so everyone had to learn to work around each other.

The following morning, we had unseasonable torrential rains, which apparently have to do with it being a “La Niña” year. That prevented us from doing much until the Sunday Mass at 4 pm. Finally, we got to meet the townspeople!

The following days were highlighted by almost daily “unusual” lightning storms, replete downpouring rain; more car break-downs, a couple of flat tires, a few bad stomachs, power outages, loss of water at the school, and a missionary getting bit by a dog. Which is, of course, precisely the way God wanted it.

The beautiful thing in all of this was to watch my missionaries roll with whatever came their way. They never lost their joy. They got creative, and they found ways to make things work. And that’s really why I love to organize these sorts of missions. Adversity brings out the missionaries’ native qualities. It inspires initiative. It transforms them into apostles. Finally, in the case of these missionaries in particular, the mission gave them a taste of the Regnum Christi charism being lived out. None of them were Regnum Christi members, and none of them really knew much about RC. But a mission such as this gave them a window into the beauty of the charism.

And yes, there were many a beautiful mission experience. The missionaries were able to organize games and catechism for the kids on most afternoons. We organized Mass, Rosary and Confessions in the local Church each day. We anointed the sick and prayed with the lonely. The missionaries had some powerful moments among themselves. And there were not a few tears shed by both missionaries and townspeople when it was time for us to leave.

So, in the end, this mission was rather a “Comedy of Errors.” But it was a Divine “Comedy of Errors.” And that, as Gerard Manley Hopkins would say, has made all the difference.

-Fr, Eric Nielsen, LC