Deacons John Lynch, Phil Mills and Tom Connolly bless the water that will be used for baptism at a crowded house in a small village, during a visit to the diocesan mission in the Dominican Republic. Deacon Manuel Ramos is seated at the right.
TLIC photo/Deacon Greg LaFreniere

Rockville Centre — “The Church is missionary by her very nature. Jesus instructed his Apostles to ‘Go out to all the world’ and ‘to baptize in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit,’” noted Msgr. Richard Figliozzi, director of the diocesan Propagation of the Faith and Mission Office.
There is the spirited septuagenarian religious sister from West Hempstead who has spent more than half her life living among the Korean people, setting up hospitals and teaching about the Catholic faith. There are the local junior high students from West Babylon, who for their Confirmation service project raised money for the people living in the isolated mountain villages of the diocesan mission in the Dominican Republic without proper nutrition, clean water, or the opportunity to go to Mass every Sunday. Missionary work is carried out in the spirit of St. Paul every day by Long Island Catholics, both religious and lay, at home and on the other side of the world. According to the mission office, there are currently 44 Long Islanders that they know of who are serving as lay and religious missionaries in other countries.
It is also a diocesan effort, promoted and assisted through the Propagation of the Faith and Mission Office. “Every diocesan (mission) office exists to promote mission awareness and to help support missionaries and those they serve with our prayers and donations,” said Msgr. Figliozzi. “Everyone sees us as raising funds, and that’s a very small (part of what we do). If we didn’t raise any funds, we should still exist, to keep alive what the missionary activity of the Church is about.”
In the villages of Hondo Valle and El Cercado in the Dominican Republic, many people live in one-room shacks with dirt floors, have no running water and only intermittent electricity. At the Inn of the Good Samaritan in the capital city of Santo Domingo, poor, sick Dominicans and Haitians are cared for in a clean, safe environment. All three make up the diocesan mission in the Dominican Republic, which Bishop John McGann established in 1979. Priests, deacons, religious, and ordinary men and women from Long Island embrace this diocesan missionary effort during visits there by bringing the sacraments to people in rural communities with no parish priests, starting catechetical programs and youth groups, caring for the sick, and building schools and churches. Those that can’t make the trip there donate funds and offer prayers to support those who can.
In another mission project, Msgr. Figliozzi invites Long Island Catholics to join him each year, usually around Lent, to work with the Missionaries of the Poor in the slums of Kingston, Jamaica. There, they live with the brothers in their monastery, helping to care for homeless and handicapped boys and men as well as sick women and children. “A lot of times we lose sight of the important things,” he noted, “and a simple mission trip, even for only four or five days, has a way of reorienting everyone to really what the Gospel is all about and what Christ came to teach.”
“Being involved with the missionary activity of the Church has helped me grow spiritually, as I witness the sacrifices that missionaries and those they serve make on behalf of the faith,” said Msgr. Figliozzi. “Anyone who is familiar with Blessed Teresa of Calcutta’s work among the poorest of the poor knows what I am speaking about. The missionary activity of the Church is another sign of the Holy Spirit at work in our midst.”
Msgr. Figliozzi encouraged Long Island Catholics to “pray for missionaries and those they serve each day. Offer your sacrifices on behalf of their work. Become more knowledgeable of this essential work of the Church.”