18 October 2025 – 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C) | Mission Sunday

by Rev Fr Fabian Dicom

There is something deeply human about weariness. We grow weary of bad news, of promises that never materialise, of corruption that seems unstoppable, of prayers that seem unanswered. yet it is precisely into this weariness that God sends us not to escape it but to stand within it as missionaries of hope. The theme for Mission Sunday, the Jubilee Theme, is Missionaries of Hope Among the Peoples. 

The Readings today give us a kind of threefold map of how hope survives and becomes mission. Moses teaches us that hope is sustained through prayer in community. Paul reminds us that hope is rooted in the fidelity to the word and Jesus shows us that hope endures through persistence in the face of injustice.

In the First Reading, Moses is not fighting with a sword but with raised hands. A gesture of faith, a gesture of surrender, of intercession. As long as his hands remain lifted, Israel prevails. But when they fall, the battle turns.

What a striking image of our own lives!

There are days when our arms of our faith, arms of our courage, these arms feel heavy. The weight of daily struggles, illness or disappointment drags us down. Yet God does not expect us to hold them up alone. Like Moses, we need our Aaron and Hur, companions who stand beside us when we cannot stand alone.

Who have been your Aaron and Hur?
Who have been your quiet companions who lifted you when your strength was fading?
Who prayed when you could no longer find the words?
Who stood by you when you were giving up?

We saw this truth powerfully during the pandemic. Let me take you back many years. Think of the many front liners, nurses, doctors, cleaners who went for days without rest. They drew strength not from themselves alone but from one another, from families who walked with them, from faith that sustained them. Their long hours of care were their prayer. And together, they held up the world in a moment of exhaustion.

Or think of the elderly couples in our parishes who quietly say the rosary each night, sometimes falling asleep midway yet their prayer quietly strengthens their children and grandchildren. They are the unseen Aaron and Hur, holding up faith for generations.

Now these small hidden acts of fidelity sustain the world more than we realise. When we lift up one another, when we lift up one another in prayer, in presence, in patience, we become the church at its best. Not a structure, but a people who hold hope for one another.

From Moses raised hands, we move to Paul’s raised voice.

Writing to Timothy, he says, ‘You must keep to what you have been taught. Proclaim the message and welcome or unwelcome, insist on it.‘

If Moses teaches us how to pray together, Paul teaches us how to persevere in truth, to let God’s word form the backbone of our hope. Hope cannot survive on emotions alone. It must be nourished by conviction.

When Paul urges Timothy to remain faithful, he is calling him and he is calling us to live by the word even when the world goes in the opposite direction.

I think of teachers who in the rural interiors of Sabah and Sarawak cross rivers and muddy roads daily to teach their students. They may have few resources and even fewer rewards but they keep teaching, believing that every child deserves a chance. Their fidelity is not loud but steadfast. It is the Gospel lived in chalk and sweat.

Every one of us has such a mission. We have a mission field and our mission field is our homes, workplaces and communities.

To be a missionary of hope is not about doing something spectacular but of being faithful to the truth entrusted to us. Doing what is right even when no one notices. They are very difficult. I’ve been having this experience with many people who want to be noticed, who want to be cherished forever.

But we have so many. The word of God becomes flesh again when we choose integrity over convenience, service over status, truth over comfort.

And then in the Gospel, Jesus brings it all together through the parable of the persistent widow, a woman without power, without position or protection, who refuses to stop knocking at the door of the unjust judge. Her perseverance is prayer in motion, both that refuses to yield to cynicism, a faith that refuses this.

If Moses’ hands were raised in prayer and Paul’s voice proclaimed the word, then this widow’s whole being becomes her prayer. You see that. An embodied cry for justice and mercy. And Jesus tells the story so that we might pray continually and never lose heart.

I think of communities displaced by floods who continue to rebuild their homes together, helping one another before help arrives.

I think of refugees who gather every Sunday in a makeshift chapel to pray, to pray in languages of longing. They pray not only with words but with the ache in their hearts.

I think of families of the disappeared who keep asking for truth when the world prefers silence.

I think of a mother of a prisoner who still visits him faithfully, whispering to him ‘God loves you and I love you.’

They are the widows of our time, those who keep believing even when the system fails them. Their persistence is the heartbeat of hope. They preach not from pulpits but from lives that refuse to surrender to despair.

So my dear brothers and sisters, what does it mean for us to be missionaries of hope among the peoples?

It means to be the ones who still believe when others have given up.
The ones who pray when others have gone silent.
The ones who act when others say it is no use.

Mission begins wherever despair tries to take root – in a family broken by resentment, in a youth tempted by despair, in a society numbed by corruption. Hope does not deny the darkness. It lights a small flame within it. And when enough of us light that flame, night begins to lose its power.

Perhaps this week, our mission field is not far away. It may be:-
> The single mother juggling two jobs to feed her children.
> The refugee youth searching for dignity in a strange land.
> Or the elderly man who scavengers recyclables to survive.

Bringing hope to them is not just about offering words of comfort or just praying for them but about choosing to act, sharing a meal, helping a child find education, standing with those whom society overlooks.

Hope grows whenever compassion takes the shape of action. And when we dare to act like this, the church, we, stop being an institution of words and become again a movement of love.

My dear brothers and sisters, our world today is not short of noise but short of hope. And that is why God needs us.

He calls us:-
> To lift the tired arms of the weary,
> To proclaim his word when it is inconvenient,
> To keep knocking for justice when the world has stopped listening.

When we live like that, when we live like that quietly, courageously, persistently, we become living proof that hope is stronger than despair. 

Then the question Jesus asks, ‘When the son of man comes, will he find faith on earth?‘

And that question can be answered with a resounding ‘Yes‘ because faith alive is hope incarnate, it is hope embodied, the hope personified. And we do that. 

So let us go forth then as Missionaries of Hope among the peoples. People whose prayer never tires, whose faith never fades, whose love never gives up. And in our small faithful ways, may we help the world believe again that God is still with us, fighting for us, speaking to us, waiting for us to hope once more.

Amen.

Click below to listen to homily and watch video

Click to live-stream Mass on 18 October 2025