MISSION APPEAL

                Each year the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops requests that each Diocesan Bishop invite representatives of Catholic Mission Societies to conduct an Annual Mission Appeal. Each Mission Society is assigned to three parishes in the diocese. This year the Society for the Propagation of the Faith has invited fifty Missionary societies to our diocese.

                This year we are welcoming to our parish the Vincentian Congregation Mary Matha (Mother of God) Province of Kerala, India to our parish. A missionary from the Vincentian Congregation will be with us next weekend asking for our help with their missions throughout the world.

                The Mary Matha (Mother of God) Province of the Vincentian Congregation has 332 professed members (238 priests, one brother, 93 Scholastics), 11 novices and 81 minor seminarians. Their priests work in the states of Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Goa and Delhi in India and in different dioceses in Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda in Africa.

                “When you are called from your prayers or the Eucharistic celebration to serve the poor, you lose nothing since to serve the poor is to go to God. You must see God in the faces of the poor.” - St. Vincent De Paul

                By upholding the words of St. Vincent De Paul, the Vincentian Congregation of Mary Matha Province has begun its social service to the unreached in the society. The objective of the service is to see the image of God in the faces of downtrodden, under-privileged people in the society. For this purpose it has established a networking agency for social work in India and abroad and named as Vincentian Network of Social Work Agencies (ViNSA). The organization has undertaken social and charitable initiatives catering to the needs of the poor, vulnerable and marginalized of society with the support of various funding agencies, kind hearted people, well-wishers, etc.

                The networking centers of ViNSA have been spread in various parts of the world. In India it has centers at Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam and Nagaland. Abroad, there are centers at Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda in Africa. In America the service has established centers in Peru and USA, and in the European countries of Germany and Switzerland and finally in the continent of Australia.

                Next weekend, July 18th and 19th, our second collection will be for the ministries of the Vincentian Congregation throughout the world. We thank you for your kind generosity to the missions who serve throughout the world.