World Mission Sunday, this Sunday 18th October, is an annual event in which Catholics from across the world focus on the support of the missions. This year, 2026, is the hundredth anniversary of World Mission Sunday, which was instituted in 1926 by Pope Pius XI. The day is an opportunity to pray for the work of missionaries and renew our own participation in the Church’s mission and our commitment to witness to the Faith, recalling that “the Holy Spirit is the principal agent of evangelization: it is He who impels each individual to proclaim the Gospel, and it is He who in the depths of consciences causes the word of salvation to be accepted and understood.” (Pope St Paul VI, Evangelii Nuntiandi, 75). The Church’s universal mission depends nonetheless on material support, and hence the annual collections taken on this day for the missions worldwide; some of these funds benefit the Church in South Africa.
In his message for World Mission Sunday this year, Pope Leo XIV has emphasised the importance of unity in the Church as a source of missionary fruitfulness, stating that for the Church to “to continue its missionary journey with joy and zeal in the Holy Spirit … requires hearts united in Christ, reconciled communities and, in everyone, a willingness to cooperate with generosity and trust.” At the same time, the Pope affirms that “missionary unity should not be understood as uniformity, but rather as the convergence of different charisms for the same purpose, namely to make Christ’s love visible and to invite everyone to encounter him. Evangelization is achieved when local communities cooperate with one another and when cultural, spiritual and liturgical differences are fully and harmoniously expressed in the same faith.”