Church of the Sheaves – Renew the Church in Mission
"Following the Jubilee Year, I wish to encourage the whole Church to continue its missionary journey with joy and zeal in the Holy Spirit. This requires hearts united in Christ, reconciled communities and, in everyone, a willingness to cooperate with generosity and trust.”
– Pope Leo XIV, Message for the 100th World Mission Day, 2026
An initiative of the Dicastery for Evangelization,
The Church of the Sheaves: Equipping the Saints for Mission as Gift Exchange in the Catholic Church is a groundbreaking project which will form pastoral leaders across the globe—bishops, priests, religious, catechists, lay ecclesial ministers, and faith educators—in a renewed missionary paradigm, centered on gift exchange, interculturality, and mutual reciprocity among the local Churches.
As a partnering institute on this initiative, the USCMA humbly requests your support for the initial phases of this initiative, which will:
- Form, inform, and transform pastoral agents and Christian communities to increasingly become what both Pope Francis and Pope Leo envision: a field hospital of mercy, a spiritual home for the weary, a bridge-building community of hope, and a sacrament of God’s reconciling love in a world longing for healing and belonging.
- Develop structured pathways of formation for missionaries serving in the Global North, strengthening the pastoral effectiveness, intercultural competence, and spiritual resilience of missionaries from the Global South who now serve increasingly in dioceses of the Global North, and equipping dioceses, parishes and religious congregations to receive them in a spirit of gift exchange and intercultural encounter.
YOUR IMPACT
Your contribution will support the initial program coordination and instructional design and enable contributors from the Global South to participate in the initial meeting and program presentation to the Holy Father in Rome this Spring.
Our fundraising target for these initial phases is $150,000. Your contribution towards this initial goal will be instrumental in launching this groundbreaking endeavor to reshape the global Church in what Pope Leo calls our “new missionary age,” which “requires hearts united in Christ, reconciled communities and, in everyone, a willingness to cooperate with generosity and trust.” (Message for the 100th World Mission Day, 2026)
PROJECT DETAILS
The Church of the Sheaves: Equipping the Saints for Mission as Gift Exchange in the Catholic Church is inspired by the Psalmist’s image of those who “come with joy, carrying their sheaves” (Ps 126:6). It envisions a Church that gratefully receives the fruits of past missionary endeavors and joyfully shares its treasures in a spirit of synodal communion.
In proposing this initiative, the Dicastery for Evangelization and its partners advance a renewed understanding of Catholic mission and Catholicity—not as unilateral giving, but as mutual recognition, shared learning, missionary gift exchange, and reciprocal enrichment amid the changing cultural and demographic realities of a global Church. According to Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, Prefect of the Vatican Dicastery for Evangelization, the initiative will:
- Form pastoral agents capable of intercultural humility.
- Help heal asymmetries between sending and receiving Churches, replacing unspoken hierarchies with collaboration.
- Equip parishes and dioceses in responding to the changing contexts of life such as migration, isolation, conflict and polarization.
- Help the Church rediscover the Joy of the Gospel, responding more fully to the invitation to a culture of encounter and synodal mindset made by Pope Francis and affirmed by Pope Leo.
Project components include:
- A 14-module Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) which aims to form a generation of missionary disciples capable of discerning the cries of the poor and the earth
- Regional (continental) conferences grounded in the MOOC themes
- Five continental documentaries offering compelling narratives of Christian hope, resilience, and transformation
- Five pastoral-theological volumes, grounded in regional research and ecclesial reports, mapping the contours of a synodal, missionary, and servant Church responding faithfully to the signs of the times
- A podcast in partnership with Vatican Radio to foster worldwide conversation
- The creation of structured pathways of formation for missionaries serving in the Global North
The Role of the United States Catholic Mission Association
In addition to helping to support fundraising efforts for the overall project, the USCMA serves both on the Regional Team for North America, which is responsible for coordinating with the US bishops, conferences of men and women religious, and academic and formation institutions to develop regional testimonies and documentaries, plan and launch the North American regional conference, and facilitate participation across the Church in the North America.
USCMA serves also on the team responsible for developing the MOOC module on Mission in Practice: Formation, Sending, and Reception. As part of this team, our role is to help develop, with feedback from our members and partners, the theological and practical focus, learning outcomes, and content for this module.
In the coming months, we will invite USCMA members and project supporters to contribute their insights and expertise to guide our contribution to this initiative.
