This divine mission - should we accept it - sounds downright intimidating and bewildering. To whom does Jesus want us to go on mission?? And how can we love people with the same faithful intensity with which the risen Jesus loves them? Above all, who are we, that we can and should accept such a difficult mission? Most of us think that we suffer from "open mouth, insert foot" disease as much as we manage to say something right, that we are as much bulls in china shops as we are grace-filled encouragers and helpers.
Let's start with the question of who we are. Pope Francis has some words of wisdom and encouragement for us. He tells us that the Holy Spirit knows who we are, through and through, and guides us on our individual missions.
"Jesus gave his disciples a truly great mission -- to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world," the Pope said. "These are images that make us think about our behavior because both the lack of and any excess of salt makes food revolting, just as a lack of and too much light hinder sight.
"The only one who can guarantee each person has been given just the right amount of salt and light is Christ's Spirit, who makes sure his disciples are 'the salt that gives flavor and protects against decay and the light that illuminates the world.' The Spirit guides us in life so that we become the right salt and the right light for humanity."
"Take Five for Faith" (for May 24) adds, "As a seasoning, salt gives a kick of flavor and taste to what might otherwise be a bland meal. Salt is also a preservative to keep food from going bad. The gospels use the symbol of salt to refer to Christ’s new life within us, an ingredient that indeed transforms our whole lives."
The Holy Spirit gives us new life to become more and more of exactly who we are - we "become" just the right amount of salt to be flavorful, not boring, to help preserve relationships. And, in the Spirit, we "become" just the right amount of light to give wise enlightenment in various situations, to be little lights leading the way to the Light of the World.
But - where does Jesus send us on mission? Jesus talks about the whole world! Our world is so full of need, so hungry and thirsty for food, drink, clothing, and comfort, so wounded, despairing, and in need of faith and hope, how can we ever decide where we should be salt and light?
We can first look at our mission as being our primary vocation, which is our "state in life:" married, single, priest, deacon, religious man or woman. Secondly, our mission is any ministries that we choose, or artistic works we feel called to create. Hopefully the major roles we've chosen for our lives give us great joy and fulfillment, and as we live them out, meet the needs of many others. Our vocations, our ministries, should be chosen out of joy, not guilt, out of a desire to commit rather than a sense of duty.
Dr. Howard Thurman (1899 - 1981), theologian and civil rights leader, has a great insight:
"Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive."
In other words, we can only love passionately if we are doing what gives us great passion and joy, what allows our inner light to shine most brightly even if we are traveling a path of darkness. Tending to a sick child or spouse or demented parent can bring us great spiritual joy and fulfillment when Christ is loving through us, even through our tears!
Fr. Richard Rohr reinforces this when he says, "The deepest vocational question is not “What ought I to do with my life?” It is the more elemental and demanding 'Who am I? What is my nature?' . . .I believe we’ve got to get our own who right before we can begin to address the question of what am I to do."
He continues, "Our deepest calling is to grow into our own authentic selfhood, whether or not it conforms to some image of who we ought to be. As we do so, we will not only find the joy that every human being seeks—we will also find our path of authentic service in the world. True vocation joins self and service, as Frederick Buechner asserts when he defines vocation as 'the place where your deep gladness meets the world’s deep need.'"
When the Holy Spirit has "nudged" us into the right vocation and ministries for us, we can most easily become salt and light because we are living out of who we are, with a deep peace and joy and rightness! We look around in our own lives and easily discover our own mission territory, right before our eyes.
We first go "on mission" to the people who have come into our lives because of our primary vocation: our families, our friends, the people we meet through our vocations, our jobs, our ministries. And, guess what? These people are often the hardest people to minister to. Why? Because they know us so well. They know our virtues, our gifts, and also our faults and failings. They know our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual illnesses and quirks. Maybe this is why we find it so hard to talk to them about God, goodness, faith, or hope. We're afraid that they'll think we are hypocrites. But - perfect love will always cast out the fear of being inadequate, because it is the Holy Spirit who accompanies us.
In "With Burning Hearts," Fr. Henri J. Nouwen tells us, "It is important to realize that the mission is, first of all, a mission to those who are no strangers to us. They know us, and, like us, have heard about Jesus but have become discouraged. The mission is always first of all to our own, our family, our friends, those who are an intimate part of our lives. That is not a very comfortable situation. I always find it harder to speak about Jesus to those who know me intimately than to those who have never had to deal with my 'peculiar ways of being.' Still there lies a great challenge here....Everyone at home knows us so well: our impatience, our jealousies, our resentments, our many little games. And then there are our broken relationships, our unfulfilled promises, and our unkept commitments.... Everyone at home is ready to test us."
We are all broken people, and everyone who knows us knows that. They know that we argue with our spouse, or gripe about our Pastor or our Bishop. They know if we have gotten a divorce or if our child is in jail. They know if we are a single parent, struggling to make ends meet. Many know if we have discovered that we have a gay, lesbian, or bisexual orientation, and watch to see if we really believe that we are made in the Image and Likeness of God and accept who we are. Will those we know and who know us really believe that we have met Jesus, have received his body and blood in Eucharist, and become living Christs?
The lives we lead, day after day, are what will speak for our authenticity and drive our mission. Are we transparent with others about our daily struggles? Do they know that we not only pray, but cry in pain, that we pray THROUGH our pain? That we live with gratitude for God's tender mercies every day instead of in bitterness over what we don't have? That, because we are in touch with the God Who lives within us, God clears our vision to see God in everyone else?
Do people see us apologize, and both ask for and give forgiveness? Do people see us smile out of trust in God even when our hearts are breaking because we know and believe that Christ is risen, risen indeed - and that we will also rise? Do people see us worshipping in Church even though we may feel anger at God because a loved one has died? Do people see us try to be bridges between the quarreling, work for peace, stand up for justice? Do they see us trying to be faithful to our relationships and commitments, even when we are exhausted and down-hearted?
Do we understand that being "on mission" means living our lives in communities of faith? After all, Jesus sent his disciples out on mission two by two. Nouwen continues,
"It is so easy to narrow Jesus down to our Jesus, to our experience of his love, to our way of knowing him. But Jesus left us so as to send his Spirit, and his Spirit blows where it wants. The community of faith is the place where many stories about the way of Jesus are being told. These stories can be very different from each other. They might even seem to conflict. But as we keep listening attentively to the Spirit manifesting itself through many people, in words as well as in silence, through confrontation as well as invitation, in gentleness as well as firmness, with tears as well as smiles - then we can gradually discern that we belong together, as one body knitted together by the Spirit of Jesus....
"Forming a community with family and friends, building a body of love, shaping a new people of the resurrection: all of this is not just so that we can live a life protected from the dark forces that dominate our world; it is, rather, to enable us to proclaim together to all people, young and old, white and black, poor and rich, that death does not have the last word, that hope is real and God is alive."
One of the main truths about going "on mission" is that this is not a numbers game. It is totally fruitless to ask ourselves, how many people am I reaching? How many good changes have I brought about? How many people have I "brought to Jesus"? How many people fill the pews of my parish? How many of the people whose marriages I've witnessed have stayed together? How many quarrels have I been able to mend? Because none of us will ever know the answers to these questions in our lifetime. And numbers are not really that important anyway. It's the quality of our missioning that matters, not the quantity, the depth of our love rather than the width of our mission territory.
Instead of vainly comparing ourselves to the formidable Mother Teresa, why don't we compare ourselves to little St. Therese of Lisieux, the Little Flower? Therese's great loves were her family - her parents and her sisters. Loving her family was her first mission. Then she decided that God was calling her to become a Carmelite nun, and she entered a convent.
That small convent of elderly nuns became Therese's other family, her other mission, for the rest of her short thirty-three years of life - in addition to the world and its missionaries, for whom she prayed daily because she was too fragile health-wise to become a missionary. Yet today she is known throughout the world as the Patroness of the Missions, and her autobiography, "The Story of a Soul," reveals a spirituality so thoroughly humble, practical, loving, human, and all-encompassing that she has been declared a Doctor of the Church for her spiritual wisdom.
Therese of Lisieux inspires us when she says, "What matters in life is not great deeds, but great love." Therese lived and taught a spirituality of being attentive to everyone and everything that we do with focused love. Therese's spirituality is of doing the ordinary, with extraordinary love. She said in prayer, "Jesus, my love. At last I have found my vocation. My vocation is love. In the heart of the Church, my mother, I will be love, and then I will be all things."
Like the little Therese, most of us live relatively hidden lives. But so does the risen Christ - who lives hidden in the Eucharist. Christ desires only that we love, love passionately and sacrificially, and pray, pray passionately. Christ and his Spirit will work through us, with us, in us, to accomplish everything God desires to accomplish.
Once we accept that Jesus the Christ wants us to go on mission, his Spirit will guide us to discover who we really are. We will embrace the vocation, the ministries, that make us truly come alive! Our deep gladness will meet the world's great need. We will live immersed in God daily: our light will shine brightly enough to illuminate God in us and others, and we will flavor the world around us with our own alluring and engaging saltiness, realness, transparency, authenticity.
Knowing that Christ accepts our own faults and failures, we will welcome everyone and anyone else with open arms. We will share our stories of Jesus active in our lives and listen to others' stories, our spiritual closeness knitting us into communities of faith and hope. We will go on mission with just the right amount of salt and light to pour over others the love, mercy, compassion, and hope they need to re-encounter God in their own lives. We won't play the numbers game of how many we've helped or reached because that's God's business, not ours, and God is interested above all in the quality of our loving. We know and trust that if we live our lives animated by the Holy Spirit, one beautiful day we will hear Christ say to us, "Mission accomplished."