Did You Know?

The Gospel readings we have been hearing at the weekend Masses, taken from the Gospel of Matthew, are our Lord’s teaching and instruction concerning our Mission. Too often the word ‘mission’ is (mis)understood as something that occurs in other places, where the Good News is being introduced, or that mission is something that a special group of men and women, called “missionaries”, do with our financial support. Participation in the Mission of the Church can be misunderstood as simply donating to a certain ‘mission field’ or supporting the ministry of a certain Missionary. Certainly giving to support particular Mission work is important, even vital. But this can ‘narrow’ the understanding and can obscure or even deny the reality that every baptized believer is called to be a missionary in their own circles of everyday life: at home, in the neighborhood, in our workplaces, and in the wider Community. When our Lord JESUS tells us that “the Kingdom of God is at hand” we need to understand that the reality, the tangible expression, of God’s Kingdom is, literally, in our hands! “How can I be a missionary?” will be the question that many ask. The answer may be more simple than imagined. Consider that the Seven Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy, taught by the Church to be required of every Catholic, as a ‘mission program’ for each one of us to share in, either alone, in family groups, or with others. 1. Feed the hungry. 2. Give drink to the thirsty. 3. Clothe the naked. 4. Shelter the homeless. 5. Visit the sick. 6. Visit the imprisoned. 7. Bury the dead. AND 1. Counsel the doubtful. 2. Instruct the ignorant. 3. Admonish sinners. 4. Comfort the afflicted. 5. Forgive offenses. 6. Bear wrongs patiently. 7. Pray for the living and the dead. Each of these can – and should – be understood as carrying out the Mission of the Church, to know JESUS Christ and to make JESUS Christ known! This is the ‘heartbeat of the Gospel’, the heartbeat of every committed Christian: to know JESUS Christ, that is to grow and mature each day in a relationship of love and trust and belonging to Him, AND then, to make JESUS Christ known to others. Not an either/or but both/and. A young college grad wrote to Mother Teresa, full of enthusiasm for the work that Mother Teresa and her Missionaries of Charity were doing in India and asking what he should do. Mother Teresa’s one sentence reply was: “Find your own Calcutta!” Every day of our lives, we are “sent” by the Lord into many worlds that we inhabit. We are “sent” into the encounters with others we meet, with whom we live, with whom we work. It is into these worlds – as ripe with opportunities as a wheat field poised for the harvest. “Love is always fruitful.” As we grow and respond to the love of God in our lives, a love that is personal and permanent and perfect, that love will necessarily ‘overflow’ our lives into all of our relationships, and God’s love becomes ‘real’, becomes tangible, touchable, personally experienced, through us to others: “The Kingdom of God is at

hand!” Whose hands? Yours and mine! Where is your ‘mission field’? Your world, your relationships, your life!