Our Deepest Anticipation – Letter from Our Executive Director

Advent Greetings!

The author and lay missioner Deirdre Cornell once recounted a conversation with her brother, who for many years had run a soup kitchen as a member of the Catholic Worker Movement. Reflecting on the kitchen guests (according to Cornell, “inner-city families unable to escape the cycle of welfare and unemployment; veterans wounded in body, mind, and spirit; the mentally ill, released from our treatment centers only to become homeless”), her brother offered this insight: “They are the prophets…They show us where our society is broken.” (Jesus Was a Migrant)

Advent is a season of anticipation. Of course, “anticipation” often brings with it a sense of exhaustion, even ambivalence. In recent months, we’ve “anticipated” everything from the unclear outcomes of the Synod on Synodality, to the result and impact of a contentious and consequential presidential election. Many of our Catholic parishes and schools “anticipate” an uncertain future of mergers, closures and decreased vocations, while those of us engaged in mission work often worry over mounting challenges to the vitality and sustainability of our organizations and ministries.

With so many of these concerns beyond our immediate control, Advent is an essential reminder to turn our deepest anticipation towards God. It is a time to recall how God breathes new life into the world through Christ, and, in turn, to invite the Spirit to breathe new life within us. Everything about the Nativity—Mary’s bold “yes,” Joseph’s adoptive commitment, a young family’s flight from persecution and forced migration—bespeaks mission. It directs our gaze to the peripheries, away from our structural, financial and even existential concerns, and, instead, to the inbreaking reign of God.

2025 is a Jubilee Year for the Church and a pivotal year for USCMA. We are planning several new initiatives to better ensure that our mission community is formed, accompanied and fed in your vital witness to the love of Christ. While this mission, the Church and our world face immense challenges, we at USCMA anticipate the year to come with resounding hope and renewed dedication. Mission has always shone most brightly in those small moments and forgotten spaces: a star you follow in the dark of night, a child born on the dusty outskirts of an empire, an unhoused family breaking bread in a parish basement. Like Mary and Joseph, we need only take the next step forward in faith.

In Christ,

Kevin Foy
Executive Director