The Central Mission

My mid-twenties have been marked by a particular word, a word that has been the subject of my prayer, the title of countless youth group talks, the buzzword in conversation with my like-minded friends. That word is MISSION. And I do not think that I am alone in this regard. If you listen to Catholic speakers, to messages from the Pope, and blogs regarding the faith, especially those addressed to young people, the word mission is prevalent. Do I think that this is appropriate? Yes. We are a missionary people. The Church, followers of Christ, have been a people commissioned by the Lord since the time in which he walked on the soil of this earth. But do I think we often have a misunderstanding of what this mission looks like? Yes.

If you look through my prayer journals from the past few years, most especially towards the end of college, my prayer to the Lord was consistently a begging to know my mission, my call in life. Was it to be a nun? Was it to use my degree and practice Social Work? Was it to be a speaker, traveling to minister to youth? Was my mission to serve young people, families, young adults? Though all these questions were valid and became a beautiful way for me to encounter the Lord and trust in his direction, in all my prayer and pleas, I was missing the central mission for which I was created. For which YOU were created. The central mission entrusted to each of us, the mission that Jesus wants us to focus on with all our being, the mission that leads us to our particular Vocations and vocations is the mission to LOVE.

In John 15, we hear Jesus’ goodbye speech to his apostles. It was the last time that he would speak to them before his crucifixion. And for that reason, we can know for certain that this was a message of importance, a message that the apostles would certainly remember. Jesus gives his “litany of remains”—“remain in me, as I remain in you”, “whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit”, “remain in my love”. But it is in verse 12 that he gives us our mission statement. “THIS IS MY COMMANDMENT: LOVE ONE ANOTHER AS I LOVE YOU.” This is THE commandment. This is THE mission: LOVE.

He didn’t speak to each specific apostle and say, “Peter, your mission is to be the first Pope. John, your mission is to write letters to the Christian communities.” But he gave to all the call of most importance: LOVE. Yes, eventually he led each of the apostles to specific vocations and particular calls, but first, they had to embrace the call that was most pressing. The call that would set them apart as followers of Christ.

So why does this matter? How does this change the way we live our lives? For so many of us, we are waiting for the Lord to direct our paths. We are making decisions about our jobs, where we live, how we spend our money, what we do with our time, how we raise our kids, how we spend our retirement. And yes, the Lord most certainly has guidance for each of these scenarios; but if we are so consumed with these decisions that we forget to love, that LOVE is the central mission of our lives, are we diminishing our lives to anxiety and worry over things that don’t last? Are we withdrawing from the work he wants to do through hearts opened to love? If our lives seem so routine with the same schedule of getting up, going to work or school, and coming home to take care of responsibilities, it is LOVE that gives meaning to the mundane. Each moment is an opportunity of mission and joy because each moment is an opportunity to love better. This call is an opportunity to be like the Saints, the most heroic of lovers. This call to love frees us from a life of mediocrity and ensures us of progress because we can always advance in love.

In a world that lacks peace, joy, satisfaction, and hope, it will be our acceptance of this mission that changes hearts. We sit now at the Last Supper, hearing Jesus’ words of urgency to “love one another”. This is the mission of our time and of every time: to be great lovers, as we entrust our lives to Love himself. And this mission requires of us acceptance as well as the humility needed to see the areas of our lives in which we must love better, love more unconditionally, love more like Christ—the perfect Lover. Today, may each of us hear Jesus saying “it was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain” (John 15:16) and that this fruit that remains is LOVE. For truly, “faith, hope, and love REMAIN; but the greatest of these is love” (1 Corinthians 13:13).