Ever wonder what happens when you place $5, $10, $20, or more into your special collection envelope for World Mission Sunday? Or when you donate online for World Mission Sunday?

First, after you place your envelope in the collection basket, your pastor sends your offering – and those of all his parishioners – to your local Pontifical Mission Societies Office in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

Each spring, the Pontifical Mission Societies’ national directors travel to Rome, Italy, to meet with other national directors from around the world. At this meeting, all the national directors report on the offerings made by the faithful of their countries. They are presented with a list of the projects and programs in the Missions that need support from the Society for the Propagation of the Faith. The directors look carefully at each of these requests for help and then vote to decide what projects are most in need of assistance so that the “Good News” of Jesus – and His love and peace – may reach all peoples, in all nations. Once these allocations are decided, funds are distributed directly to the Missions. Your World Mission Sunday gift may be used to buy Bibles for catechists in Sierra Leone or provide for a small parish in India. Your offering may be used to help Sisters in Sudan lovingly care for orphans in Jesus’ name, or it may buy a bicycle for a priest in Thailand so that he can travel from village to village to celebrate Mass. Most importantly, wherever your offering is sent, it brings with it the Good News of Jesus Christ and His message of peace, hope, and salvation.

What can my World Mission Sunday donation help accomplish in the Missions?
A gift of $25 is one month’s support for a mission catechist; $75 provides for the work of Religious Sisters. An offering of $100 is a month’s help for a village mission. Always, your prayers are the most treasured gift to the Missions.

I just donated money to the Society for the Propagation of the Faith. How else can I help the Missions?
The life of St. Thérèse of Lisieux, patroness of the Missions offers Catholics insight into how they may fulfill their Baptismal responsibility to share the Good News of Jesus without ever “going to the Missions.” St. Thérèse dedicated her life to the Missions by offering her prayers and her personal sacrifices – her pain, her loneliness, her suffering – for missionaries and those whom they served.

Another wonderful to support the missions is by praying the World Mission Rosary. Each decade represents a different part of the world. When you are done, you have essentially prayed for the entire world.