Forming a Missionary Heart
Rev. Msgr. John E. Kozar

      My earliest recollections of the “Missions” and missionary life go back to about age eight, when I first served Mass and had the opportunity to talk with a visiting missionary priest who was home on leave. He was for me a larger-than-life figure and excited in me the call to be a missionary, to share my own faith in the Lord with others.

      Also during my elementary school years, it was customary for our school to host visiting missionaries who would give “vocation talks” to us kids. The boys would hear the captivating presentations of priests; the girls, the exciting stories from Sisters serving in the Missions. Those talks had a profound influence on my vocation as a baptized Catholic, and, most especially, on my priesthood.

      I appreciated at that early age how important and how exciting the missionary call could be. Certainly, it was in a time when there was much more idealism and a strong desire to do the unusual; there was then much less emphasis on making money or being “successful.” Those contacts with the Missions placed a thought in my mind – and heart – of serving the Church as a priest, perhaps in a faraway place.

      At home, my family encouraged myself and my sisters to learn about other cultures (especially our own Croatian culture) and languages, and to appreciate geography and the rich diversity of the world around us. My father taught us well that the world is really one family separated only by oceans, mountains, languages, customs and traditions. With such a mindset, it was easy to think “missionary.”

      Today our fractured world looks for solutions to very complex problems. The answer the Church offers today – as it has always done – is Jesus Christ, the Son of God. To the poor and oppressed, to the suffering and sick, Jesus is a source of hope and peace. More than anything a missionary does, he or she brings that hope, joy and peace to the millions who wait for the “Good News” of Jesus.

      In my role as National Director for the Pontifical Mission Societies in the United States, I have a wonderful opportunity to experience both sides of the mission picture. Together with my brother and sister directors in this mission family, we help form Catholics in a missionary spirit, inviting them to reach out in faith through their prayers and sacrificial offerings to the poor of the Developing World. I also have the great blessing, as do diocesan mission directors, of meeting missionaries here in my office and of visiting mission projects around the world. There, we see firsthand the dynamic work of missionaries that makes all the difference in the lives of countless people who have come to know Christ.

      For a seminarian or a priest, there is no substitute for visiting the Missions. Accompanied by spiritual preparation and theological reflection, a well-prepared mission visit gives a priest or a seminarian a unique opportunity to have a real-time experience of mission life.

      In my own seminary days, I had just such an experience after my first year of theology at St. Mary’s Seminary and University in Baltimore, Maryland. I participated in a summer program in which I traveled to Juliaca, Peru. It was very challenging linguistically, since most of the population spoke Quechua and I had expected Spanish. But the Good Lord provided, and it was for me a window to the mission world. It was also a turning point in my preparation for the priesthood, as I knew at that point that I wanted to be a missionary as a priest – no matter where “home base” was for me.

      There also, I developed a friendship with a missionary, Jesuit Father Alejandro Repulles. He was truly my all-time mission hero. Talk about being larger-than-life. He did it all as a missionary. He was beloved by the people. He was humble; he was gentle. I learned from him how basic and yet profound is the missionary presence of one who loves Christ and wants to share Him with others.

      There was a gap of more than 30 years from the time that I worked as a seminarian with Father Alejandro and when I visited him again; this time, in Cusco, Peru. I walked into the Jesuit church in the center of that city during the noon Mass. A bearded figure, whom I immediately recognized as Father Alejandro, looked at me from the altar. After Mass I practically ran into the sacristy to greet him. He called my name in Spanish and then asked, “Are you a priest?” I indicated that I was, for almost 30 years. He hugged me, a sign of priestly love and affection. What a missionary moment for me; what a moment between teacher and student.

      That mission visit, albeit brief, opened my mind and my heart even further to the Missions. Other priests who have made such journeys echo the same sentiments. For five Pennsylvania priests and their bishop, a mission experience gave them memories that continue to form their hearts as missionaries today. In February 2000, the Scranton, Pennsylvania, diocesan office of the Pontifical Mission Societies arranged for five pastors to join their bishop at that time, James C. Timlin, for a mission pilgrimage to Haiti. They visited missionaries caring for sick and dying children, walked the slums of Cite Soleil and Little Haiti, brought the Sacraments to people in hospitals and prayed with them, visited with schoolchildren, and witnessed the help — and the hope — offered by the local church in Haiti.

      “We have all been enriched by the experience, and our lives will never be the same,” said Bishop Timlin after the trip. “We are filled with empathy and sympathy and we can be better priests for it. We will remember and we will be much more sympathetic to the poor at home. We will speak more about the good works of the Missions.”

      Another priest who made the journey noted: “I feel renewed as a priest. There’s a real tugging at my heart. It makes a difference in how I say the liturgy. I am in reverence.”

      In his own writings, Pope John Paul II refers to the “missionary heart” that must beat inside every priest – those serving in faraway places and those bearing witness to Christ right here at home. “All priests,” our Holy Father says, “must have the mind and the heart of missionaries – open to the needs of the Church and the world” (Redemptoris Missio, No. 67). And he explains, “They should have at their heart, in their prayers and particularly at the Eucharistic Sacrifice, the concern of the whole Church for all of humanity.”

      Whether you ever get to journey to the Developing World, remember always in your priesthood that through the Eucharist we are connected to the Missions. “Eucharist and mission are inseparable,” the pope notes. “When we take part in the Eucharistic Sacrifice we understand more profoundly the universality of redemption and, consequently, the urgency of the Church’s mission.”

      If a mission visit is offered to you, embrace it. It will, I feel certain, change you forever. But if your priestly journey never takes you away from home, be a missionary through your prayers and sacrifices, at the Eucharist – and in your heart, as I remain so today.

Monsignor John Kozar, a priest of the Diocese of Pittsburgh, has been national director of the Pontifical Mission Societies in the United States —the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, the Holy Childhood Association, the Society of St. Peter Apostle and the Missionary Union of Priests and Religious — since 2001.