What’s your mission? Extraordinary global social campaign sees thousands sharing theirs
As World Mission Sunday, the pinnacle of Pope Francis’ Extraordinary Missionary Month, approaches, a social media campaign is captivating hearts and minds around the world and asking, “What’s your mission?”
What's your mission? A global social campaign is asking the question we often think about but perhaps rarely articulate.
Thousands of people from Europe, the Americas, Africa and Asia-Pacific have joined the movement, sharing what it is they feel they were put on this earth to do, using the hashtag #MyMission on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat.
Catholic Mission is driving the initiative in Australia, and the organisation’s Digital and Online Manager Simone Medri says it is a simple and unifying message. ‘The #MyMission campaign asks a straightforward question that perhaps we frequently ponder but are less inclined to articulate,’ he said.
‘What better time to put into words what our mission here is than during the Extraordinary Missionary Month?’
The month of October 2019 was designated as an Extraordinary one by Pope Francis in 2017, with a focus entirely on celebrating works of mission around the world.
‘God will ask us if we stepped forward and took risks, even losing face,’ the Pope said in his address launching the month last week. ‘This Extraordinary Missionary Month should jolt us and motivate us to be active in doing good. Not notaries of faith and guardians of grace, but missionaries.’
To commemorate the occasion, Catholic Mission’s diocesan offices are planning special events throughout the month, while at a national level, the Extraordinary Missionary Month is a central part of the organisation’s fundraising and formation efforts in schools and parishes this year, while initiatives like #MyMission aim to facilitate in people young and old an understanding of the role they play in mission.
Indeed, the theme for the Extraordinary Missionary Month is “Baptized and Sent”, which Pope Francis says sums up the call to be missionary in our daily lives as Catholics. ‘Celebrating this month will help us first to rediscover the missionary dimension of our faith in Jesus Christ, a faith graciously bestowed on us in baptism,’ Francis said in his 2019 World Mission Sunday message. ‘Through our communion with God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, we, together with so many of our other brothers and sisters, are born to new life.
‘This divine life is not a product for sale … but a treasure to be given, communicated and proclaimed: that is the meaning of mission.’
All this month, people from around the world are joining together to give, communicate and proclaim the treasure that is their mission in the world. You can view their stories on Facebook, using the hashtag #MyMission, or by visiting the online Mission Wall.
For more information on the Extraordinary Missionary Month, head to our dedicated page here.
