Mission Sunday in Ireland
The Society for the Propagation of the Faith was founded by a young French lay woman called Pauline Marie Jaricot in 1822. Pauline wished to form a missionary consciousness in all Christians so that they would aid the Church to carry out its task of bringing the Gospel to the whole world. The seed which Pauline planted grew in strength and began to spread around the world.
On 18th September 1838, the Society for the Propagation of the Faith was formally established in Ireland, by Archbishop Murray of Dublin. Each year the Society is responsible for organising the Church's annual celebration of mission, Mission Sunday.
The Headquarters of the Society, then in Lyon in France, published a periodical called the Annals of the Propagation of the Faith. An avid reader of these Annals was a young priest of the Archdiocese of Dublin, Fr John Hand. The Annals inspired Fr John to strive for the establishment of a Catholic college for the foreign missions, and, in November 1842 his vision was realised through the founding of All Hallows Missionary College in Drumcondra, Dublin.
From the beginning Irish Catholics demonstrated great support for the Society and even in pre-famine times contributions amounted to sums between five and seven thousand pounds, the equivalent in modern currency would be €250,000. The tradition of generosity to the Church's missionary activities continues today and in 2008 Irish people contributed over €2.5million to the Mission Sunday collection.
