Mission Sunday

thought-for-sundayFrom the desk of Fr. Ignatius Waters, cp

Sunday, October 19th, 2014

 You never miss your mother till she’s gone! An old saying but so true about so many things and situations! You never miss your children till they’ve emigrated. You never miss your teeth till they’ve also emigrated. You never miss your hearing or your eyesight till they’re gone or nearly gone – and when they’re gone, they’re gone, as the ad says!

The same can be said about the whole of our lives. Where did our lives go so quickly? Children and young people are so preoccupied with school and studies, with being a success and living up to own their expectations and the expectations of others, that they have little time to wonder what the whole thing is about. Adults are so preoccupied with work and making a living, caring for children and anxious about their own parents, that they too have little time to reflect much about life itself! What is it all about? What is my reason for living? It can happen that we begin to seriously wonder about all this only when we’re approaching the departure lounge!

There are people who say, “I don’t believe in God any more but I miss him – or her!” and people who say, “I believe in God but not in the church.” And people have their reasons for each of these statements. But maybe they’ve never been able to articulate clearly what has led them to these conclusions. It can be one bad experience of church or church people. It can be that God and church can seem so remote from their everyday lives. The ideals of Christianity can seem impossibly high and they feel overwhelmed by them instead of encouraged.

But when faith and hope in God or church are gone, they need not be gone forever! People may at some stage want to re-engage but don’t know how. The local church may be so depleted in numbers and energy that it doesn’t know how to reach out to the many good people who just feel lost and confused but no one has come looking for them. The Legion of Mary does its best but recruits are few and the harvest is so great. There are many who call themselves Catholic but all it means is that they were baptized and received First Communion; they come to the church for weddings or funerals; they may have their children baptized but they never think of joining with others for Sunday Mass. Those who do pray and go to mass know very well it’s still a struggle to go on believing and hoping and living a truly Christian life. What must it be like without the constant nourishment of the Eucharist and the support and encouragement of the other believers? We know well that communion is not a reward for a well spent life. It is spiritual nourishment for us frail mortals without which we cannot live a Christian life.

Pope Francis has said the situation today is the mirror opposite of Jesus’ parable about the shepherd who leaves the 99 sheep to go looking for the one that is lost. “Today” he says, “We have one in the sheepfold and 99 we need to go looking for.” That’s why he urges us all, wherever we are, to be missionaries of God’s love, tenderness and mercy.   As well as being Mission Sunday, today is also the feast day of St. Paul of the Cross who said towards the end of his life that if he was starting out again, he would preach nothing only the mercy and compassion of God for all people.