From the Editor: Mission Journeys

Reading Time: < 1 minute

Each autumn we dedicate an issue of this magazine to mission vocations, coinciding with World Mission Sunday in October. So in this, our quarterly Fall 2021 edition, we feature mission journey stories of Maryknoll priests, brothers, sisters, lay missioners and affiliates.

Reflecting on this, I’m reminded of the role of Maryknoll magazine in my own mission journey. In the late 1980s I was working on a daily newspaper in Connecticut when one day Maryknoll appeared unexpectedly in my mailbox. I believe I got the magazine after ordering an Orbis book on Latin America.

At the time, I was also diligently studying Spanish. As I read the providential copy of Maryknoll, I came across an article by an American journalist serving as a Maryknoll lay missioner at Latinamerica Press. I already subscribed and read regularly this weekly bulletin based in Lima, Peru. The rest, as they say, is history.

I joined the Maryknoll Lay Missioners and served for a term at that very publication in Lima. Some years later, I was hired to work for Maryknoll magazine, after I had returned from my mission in Peru. Having served with Maryknollers overseas and having reported on their missions around the world, I remain forever awed by the love, dedication and fortitude of these amazing men and women. I’m also reminded of Church teaching that we are all missioners by virtue of our baptisms.

That said, what is your mission journey story?

Magazine Past Issues

About the author

Lynn F. Monahan

Lynn F. Monahan is editor-in-chief of Maryknoll magazine and served as a Maryknoll lay missioner in Peru in the 1990s. A graduate of Syracuse University, he has worked for newspapers and newswires, including The Associated Press and Bloomberg News. He holds a master’s degree in writing from Manhattanville College, and is the author of the award-winning novel Pistaco: A Tale of Love in the Andes. Twitter: @LFMonahan