- mission
-
—missional, adj./mish"euhn/, n.1. a group or committee of persons sent to a foreign country to conduct negotiations, establish relations, provide scientific and technical assistance, or the like.2. the business with which such a group is charged.3. a permanent diplomatic establishment abroad; embassy; legation.4. Mil. an operational task, usually assigned by a higher headquarters: a mission to bomb the bridge.5. Aerospace. an operation designed to carry out the goals of a specific program: a space mission.6. a group of persons sent by a church to carry on religious work, esp. evangelization in foreign lands, and often to establish schools, hospitals, etc.7. an establishment of missionaries in a foreign land; a missionary church or station.8. a similar establishment in any region.9. the district assigned to a missionary.10. missionary duty or work.11. an organization for carrying on missionary work.12. Also called rescue mission. a shelter operated by a church or other organization offering food, lodging, and other assistance to needy persons.13. missions, organized missionary work or activities in any country or region.14. a church or a region dependent on a larger church or denomination.15. a series of special religious services for increasing religious devotion and converting unbelievers: to preach a mission.16. an assigned or self-imposed duty or task; calling; vocation.17. a sending or being sent for some duty or purpose.18. those sent.adj.19. of or pertaining to a mission.20. (usually cap.) noting or pertaining to a style of American furniture of the early 20th century, created in supposed imitation of the furnishings of the Spanish missions of California and characterized by the use of dark, stained wood, by heaviness, and by extreme plainness. Also called foreign mission (for defs. 3, 6).[1590-1600; 1925-30 for def. 4; < L mission- (s. of missio) a sending off, equiv. to miss(us) (ptp. of mittere to send) + -ion- -ION]
* * *
Organized effort to spread the Christian faith.St. Paul evangelized much of Asia Minor and Greece, and the new religion spread rapidly along the trade routes of the Roman Empire. The advance of Christianity slowed with the disintegration of the Roman Empire after AD 500 and the growth of Arab power in the 7th–8th century, but Irish and Anglo-Saxon missionaries continued to spread the faith in western and northern Europe, while missionaries of the Greek church in Constantinople worked in eastern Europe and Russia. Missions to Islamic areas and Asia began in the medieval period, and when Spain, Portugal, and France established overseas empires in the 16th century, the Roman Catholic church sent missionaries to the Americas and the Philippines. A renewed wave of Roman Catholic missionary work in the 19th century focused on Africa and Asia. Protestant churches were slower to undertake foreign missions, but in the 19th and early 20th century there was a great upsurge in Protestant missionary activity. Missionary work continues today, though it is often discouraged by the governments of former European colonies that have won independence.* * *
city, Hidalgo county, southern Texas, U.S., part of the McAllen- Edinburg-Mission metropolitan area, in the lower Rio Grande valley. A settlement was made in 1907 near a mission established (1824) by the Oblate Fathers of the Franciscan order. It developed as a shipping and packing centre for citrus fruits and is the site of the annual Texas Citrus Fiesta (a salute to the Texas Ruby Red grapefruit). The national headquarters of the American Poinsettia Society is located in Mission. Inc. 1910. Pop. (1990) city, 28,653; McAllen-Edinburg-Mission MSA, 383,545; (2000) city, 45,408; McAllen-Edinburg-Mission MSA, 569,463.* * *
Universalium. 2010.
