In 2015, Pope Francis issued his Lenten message: “make your hearts firm!” One of his insights was that every Christian community is a missionary community. We cannot isolate ourselves; it is our Christian duty to go out and evangelize.
The Church is missionary by her very nature; she is not self-enclosed but sent out to every nation and people.
Her mission is to bear patient witness to the One who desires to draw all creation and every man and woman to the Father. Her mission is to bring to all a love which cannot remain silent. The Church follows Jesus Christ along the paths that lead to every man and woman, to the very ends of the earth (cf. Acts 1:8). In each of our neighbours, then, we must see a brother or sister for whom Christ died and rose again. What we ourselves have received, we have received for them as well. Similarly, all that our brothers and sisters possess is a gift for the Church and for all humanity.
At the end of every Mass, we are sent forth to carry God’s presence into the world. In fact, the word “Mass” comes from the Latin, ite, missa est: Go, you are sent, which is part of the concluding rite of the Mass.
Does this mean we are supposed to go knock on doors and ask people, “Do you know Jesus?” Are we meant to stand in a public park and proclaim the Gospel? Just what does it mean that we are “sent?” Where are we supposed to go, exactly?
For most of us, we are “sent” to places that are familiar to us: to our families, our everyday chores and errands, our work place and school, into our relationships with others.
This journey that we undertake every week when we are “sent” means that we are to bring Christ into our life – even in the most mundane of ways. How do you treat that cashier with the bad attitude? What do you say and do when you encounter a young mother struggling with an unruly toddler as you push your cart through the grocery store? When that one co-worker gets under your skin again, how do you act charitably when you really want to lash out? At the family dinner table, how do you draw out your sullen teen without being argumentative?
Pope Francis reminds us that we each possess a gift, and we must bring our gift to everyone (yes, EVERYone!) we encounter on our daily journey. Perhaps you are a good listener. Maybe your gift is to teach and explain the faith. It might be that your gift is to bring kindness into a cruel and hurtful situation.
As you journey through your week, ask yourself, “How am I bringing Christ into my world?” And then: go!
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