"You are the light of the world... Just so, your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father." (Matthew 5:14-16)
This weekend I have been visiting a few of the Glenmary Missions in Southern Georgia. One Mass that I attended at the Holy Cross Mission in Pembroke, Georgia only fifteen people were present! A small crowd in comparison to what a parish located in a large northern city in the U.S. would have on a Sunday, but this is “Mission Land USA” - places in the U.S. where less than 1% of the population is catholic and over half the population in the area do not belong to any church! Growing up in Columbus, Ohio it was eye opening to learn that there is such a need here in the United States. I think it was the Greek historian Herodotus who once said; "It is a fact, an odd fact yet often noted that the farther you go from home the stranger things get."
It should not matter where you live: north or south, big city or rural - everyone has the right to receive the sacraments. Glenmary recognizes that right and serves in missions in the small neglected areas of the U.S. - places like Pembroke and hundreds of other areas where the Eucharist and the sacraments would not be available to the people otherwise. William Howard Bishop, founder of Glenmary Home Missioners once wrote; "The one great central thought that brought out society (Glenmary) into existence in these unfavored regions was the fact that these regions, of all others in America, are, generally speaking, the least supplied with and the most in need of Christ's Church and the means of propagating it."
Are you called to be a light by serving with Glenmary Home Missioners in these little mission areas of the U.S.?
"Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies." Mother Teresa
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