Planting Seeds: Our Mission

Why don’t we go right ahead and define the Church’s mission, since it’s probably one you’re quite familiar with. Here it is: “Evangelizing is in fact the grace and vocation proper to the Church, her deepest identity. She exists to evangelize.”

I’m going to be completely honest and say, no, I haven’t reached that point in my faith journey at which I exist to evangelize. I’m not going to sit here and pretend that I’m anywhere near the image of someone who daily, willingly, goes out and proclaims my faith and allegiance to Jesus Christ widely and boldly. There are probably some of you here who do, unflinchingly, frequently, and this is quite admirable. I’m in awe every day of the work that you all do in University City as a whole to bring people nearer to the faith, to the commitment you all have to serve Jesus in the midst of craziness, to the dedication you all have to serving others, and your commitment to make everyone feel welcome. All of these are God-given qualities that each of you, individually, have acted upon. And these actions have drawn us here tonight, together to mull over our faith journeys, which I think is incredibly special and powerful.

Proclaiming and sharing our faith is our central mission as Catholics and as Christians. And yet, so many of us struggle to do this. However, I’d like to think that by constantly doing our best to live out our days in Christ’s image, we can help communicate Christ’s message, and the mission of our Church, perhaps without even realizing it. We can plant little seeds wherever we go, whenever we mention our faith, or even when we act selflessly, providing unflinching support and kindness.

I’ve seen this come to fruition time and time again— people I’ve met may have a preconceived notion of the Church, of Christians, or of our purpose, and yet, they may leave a conversation with me thinking positively about the community we’ve created here in the house. I’m typically a bit of a shier person and may not always be inclined to start out a conversation by mentioning my faith. But, admittedly, largely in part to living in our house this past year, I’ve had to push past my worries about people’s thoughts and become a bit more open and unapologetic about my faith. And yet, I still have difficulty being completely straight up with people and saying I can’t meet at a certain time on Sunday because I need to go to Mass.

I thought we’d make this a little interactive, so the verse I’d like you guys to meditate on for this brief interlude in my talk is the following from John Chapter 15, Verse 5:

I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me, you can do nothing.

What an important reminder. Without serving Christ, our ultimate mission, we have done nothing, and we will do nothing. Without Christ as our rock, and without meeting Christ one day as our goal, our accomplishments and accolades are meaningless. But with Jesus at the center of our ambitions and endeavours, we will move the world. When asked to give this talk, I immediately thought about the secular usage of the word mission, and how infrequently it is used in everyday conversation in comparison to “purpose” and “goal.” I thought about how, if you polled a group of college students from around here on their ultimate mission, you could easily hear landing an elusive IB internship, killing OCR, or acceptance to a prestigious graduate school as responses, which is honestly quite sad. Living here and being a part of the larger Penn faith community has kept me sane and honest about my ultimate mission, even if I dive into the deep end of qualms about success at times.

I’m going to give you a minute or two to mull over the verse I shared before I took that somewhat wild turn. Here it is again: “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me, you can do nothing.” Our belief in God gives the strength to align all our endeavours, including service of others to the greatest mission of serving him. Wow! We made it to vocation!

Here are two points you can think about:

What are some things you truly love to do (does not have to be your vocation):

Find how these things tie into your walk with God... what are some ways you live out your individual mission of serving the Lord right now, through how you do these things:

October, which is coming up all too quickly, is Missionary Month in the Church. This year’s message is “Baptized and Sent: the Church of Christ on Mission in the World.” I’ll read a short excerpt from the Pope Francis’s letter for this month, as well as a quote from him, which I think can help guide us to develop our own unique ways to carry out our mission of spreading Christ’s love. It should be noted here that when I still had a mild bout of writer’s block at 4:39pm today, I strongly considered reading aloud the pope’s entire letter.

This missionary mandate touches us personally: I am a mission, always; you are a mission, always; every baptized man and woman is a mission. People in love never stand still: they are drawn out of themselves; they are attracted and attract others in turn; they give themselves to others and build relationships that are life-giving. As far as God’s love is concerned, no one is useless or insignificant. Each of us is a mission to the world, for each of us is the fruit of God’s love.

Some small steps I’ve taken to carry out mission in the past year are to ask my friends if they’d like to come to church with me. Or at Easter, inviting one of my friends who has struggled to find a faith community in college if she’d like to celebrate at church with a group of our friends. But even more so, I’ve found that people respond so positively to me when I say something to the effect of “I didn’t expect to grow my faith in college, but here I am.” As with all speaking and writing, it is often the delivery of our words and thoughts about our faith that makes the largest impact. In our daily conversations, our faith calls us to listen to our fellow Christians, to listen intently to our friends who practice other religions, and most of all, to listen and be supportive of our friends who are struggling to find faith. More often than not, the people around you will have an appreciation for your faith if they see what a positive effect it has had on you; if they see you treating everyone as Jesus would, with that unflinching kindness and openness; with the deepest care for your brothers and sisters on earth.