The Diocese of Rockhampton will celebrate with a special Eucharist on World Mission Sunday on 20 October at 9.30am. We will be joined by His Excellency, the Apostolic Nuncio, Archbishop Adolfo Tito Yllana. The Mass will be followed by a special Filipino Festival. Come and join us!

This October the Universal Church observes and celebrates an Extraordinary Missionary Month. The Extraordinary Missionary Month was announced by Pope Francis to mark the 100th anniversary of Pope Benedict XV's Apostolic Letter ‘Maximum Illud’.

The theme is ‘Baptized and Sent: The Church of Christ on Mission in the World,’ coinciding with Pope Francis’ prayer intention for the month of October, which is for a ‘Missionary Spring’ in the Church.

The Extraordinary Missionary Month initiative aims to awaken the awareness of the meaning of mission and reinvigorate the sense of responsibility for proclaiming the Gospel with new enthusiasm.

The pope launched the month with a prayer vigil in St Peter’s Basilica the evening of 1 October, on the feast of St Therese of Lisieux, co-patron of the missions and one of Francis’s favourite saints. 

Pope Francis wants the entire month of October to have a focus on mission because he wanted to give ‘fresh evangelical impulse to her work of preaching and bringing to the world the salvation of Jesus Christ.’

In his message for the month, Pope Francis wrote: ‘God wills that all people be saved by coming to know the truth and experiencing his mercy through the ministry of the Church, the universal sacrament of salvation.’

The Extraordinary Missionary Month is an invitation for all to join in and do something extraordinary for mission.