We're On a Mission from God

Third Sunday of Advent

     If I say the names Jake and Elwood, those of you who remember the 80s probably know exactly who I’m talking about.  Jake and Elwood are the Blues brothers, from the movie with the same name.  And as they work to get the band back together, they make it clear to everyone, that they’re on a mission from God. 
    Our first reading and Gospel today focus on a mission.  In the first reading from the Prophet Isaiah, we hear the mission statement that Jesus Himself will give as He preaches in the synagogue at Nazareth.  Jesus tells them, as Isaiah told Israel, that God has sent Him “to bring glad tidings to the poor, to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and release to the prisoners, to announce a year of favor from the Lord and a day of vindication by our God.”  That’s definitely a mission from God, and a pretty good one!
    Our Gospel, too, makes clear that St. John the Baptist was “sent from God.  He came for testimony, to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him.”  We heard about St. John the Baptist, also called the Precursor, last week in our Gospel.  The Precursor is a man on a mission, to prepare the way for Jesus.  He is not the Messiah, as some had started to think, but wants everyone in Israel to be ready for the Messiah. 
    We, too, are called to be people on mission.  We, like Jake and Elwood, are on a mission from God.  I have used this quote before, but St. John Henry Newman wrote: 

God has created me to do Him some definite service.  He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another.  I have my mission….He has not created me for naught.  I shall do good; I shall do His work.  I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place.

God has given us each a mission, a call, and it’s something that no one else can do like we can.  Can we respond to that call?
    Many times when we think of a call, we think of priests and consecrated men and women like monks and brothers, nuns and sisters.  But all of us are called, by baptism, to be on mission for God.  Many are called to be on mission as a wife or mother, husband or father.  Others are called to serve as a priest or deacon, or be in a religious community.  Some women are called to be consecrated virgins.  But all are called to advance the Gospel to others.
    How do we recognize our call?  Prayer is key.  A call is something that we choose, but to which God first invites us.  We make a deliberate choice to follow the urging of the Holy Spirit in our life.  Imagine how silly it would sound if I said I chose to be a priest simply because no one else wanted me.  Probably not a great way to start the seminary interview with the bishop.  Instead, a call is something to which we are driven.  A wife (hopefully) doesn’t agree to marry someone simply because no one else will have her.  She finds a man who cares for her, who puts her needs above his own, who wants to work with her to build a family according to God’s plan.  She chooses to love him because she senses that they are meant to become saints together.  And through daily prayer, taking time in silence to hear the voice of God, we learn what God wants for us.
    Sometimes our idea of the call develops or changes.  I didn’t always want to be a priest.  I wanted to be married, have a few kids, a couple of dogs, a really nice house and car, and work either in the military, or as a lawyer, and then maybe a politician (don’t let that last part lessen your opinion of me!).  But through prayer, I came to sense that I could only be truly happy as a priest.  Of course, the Church had something to say about it, too.  It wasn’t simply that I wanted a particular vocation.  But with the formation that the Church provided, and the “yes” that the Church spoke through her leaders, I came to be confirmed in what I felt God wanted me to do.  Sometimes our understanding of our mission changes or develops.
    Another key part of our mission is that we don’t replace the Messiah.  An older priest once told me that his spiritual director had counseled him when he became all-too-convinced of his own importance, “The Church already has a Messiah; we don’t need you!”  Our mission is to cooperate with God, not to take His place.  So many people feel that they can decide what they want to do, rather than God; that they can define what happiness will be–whom they can marry, how many kids they need to have, how they should spend their money–without any consideration of what God wants.  God has made the world a certain way, and has taught us, through the Scriptures and the Church, what truly makes us happy.  When we choose other than that, we are in an exercise of futility; we cannot be happy doing the things that God has said will not give us true happiness. 
    Some of you may feel, due to age or other factors, that you have already accomplished your mission because you know your vocation.  But, as long as you are alive, you still are on mission.  You can continue to spread the Gospel through your children, your grandchildren, and others.  You can offer suffering to Jesus on the cross for an intention.  You can continue to help others know the joy you have from your relationship with Jesus.  Don’t let COVID give you the blues.  You are on a mission from God!

St. John Henry Newman

Duc In Altum

Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

One of my favorite saints has always been St. Peter.  No, I don’t want to be pope (being a pastor is enough responsibility for me!), but I like St. Peter.  He’s one of the great apostles of Jesus, who always has great things to say, unless he’s putting his foot in his mouth (as he also often does).  He is, we might say, very relatable.  I’d like to believe that I have had great moments of faith and trust in God (even if great is a sliding scale), but I also know that I have had my own outbreaks of foot-in-mouth disease.

And since I like St. Peter so much, today’s Gospel is one of my favorites.  It’s St. Luke talking about how St. Peter was called by Jesus.  St. Peter (still going by Simon at this point) is fishing all night and catching nothing (side note: have you ever noticed that St. Peter is never able to catch fish on his own?!?).  Then Jesus, who, from all outside views, knows nothing about fishing, tells him to go out again, and put into deep waters.  St. Peter begrudgingly does this, and then catches so many fish that he has to call his partners, James and John (who also became apostles), to help him drag it in.  St. Peter realizes that he is in the presence of someone special, someone great, and makes a confession of his own sinfulness.  Jesus tells him not to be afraid, because he will be catching men from now on.

When others hear this story, they sometimes ask me how I came to follow Jesus as a priest.  And certainly, all of our readings focus on calls: on the call of Isaiah to be a prophet; the call of St. Paul to preach the Gospel as the last apostle; and, as I mentioned, the call of St. Peter to follow Jesus as one, and the chief, of His apostles.  

Some priests I know have amazing stories like St. Peter of Jesus doing something great and spectacular in their lives.  But for me, that’s not the case.  As an eighth grader, I started thinking about what I wanted to do as an adult (so that I could concentrate on the right classes in high school, get into a good college in a field in which I wanted, and then get a good job).  If it were up to me, I wanted to be a lawyer, and then maybe go into politics.  I wanted to be married, have a few kids, a couple of dogs, and have lots of money.  But I knew that if I were going to be happy, I had to do what God wanted me to do.  So I started praying to God each night, asking Him to let me know.  And I heard nothing.  

So I started to go to daily Mass a few times at Lansing Catholic High School, and it was there that a stranger asked me if I were going to be a priest.  And other classmates and teachers started to do the same thing.  And before long, I started to realize that maybe God was asking me to consider a vocation to the priesthood.  I started to learn more about Catholicism, and fell in love with the Church, as one falls in love with his girlfriend.  And I decided that I wanted to give my life to serve her, just as a man decides (and hopefully the woman agrees) that he wants to give his life to serve the woman he wants to be his wife.  I applied to the seminary in my senior year through the Diocese of Lansing, and was accepted for my freshman year of college.  Each year I asked God to make it painfully clear if He didn’t want me to continue on.  And each year, I was asked to come back and continue studying to become a priest.  It wasn’t always easy; there were times where I thought (with the assistance of a rather attractive female lab partner) that maybe the priesthood wasn’t for me; but God did and has sustained me in my vocation.  God’s providential care for me has been more in the day-to-day events of life, not so much in the spectacular, like St. Peter.

But God knows what we need in responding to His call.  Some people don’t need the dramatic moments.  Some people do.  The key is that we are listening for the call of Jesus, and we respond with courage to the call of Jesus.  Because Jesus says to anyone who wants to follow Him, “Put out into deep water.”  In Latin that phrase is Duc in altum, and it was used by Pope St. John Paul II as he began his Apostolic Letter on the new millennium in 2001.  It was also a favorite of Bishop Mengeling, who told us seminarians not to dangle our toes in the water, but to put out into deep water.

Any vocational call–ordained ministry, marriage, consecrated life–and even while discerning God’s call, takes courage.  It takes faith in God, and confidence that He will show you the way.  As a priest it takes courage to serve when a very small percentage have tainted the good name of the priesthood, and it takes courage to say yes to never having a wife and a biological family of your own.  As a consecrated man or woman it takes courage to promise to not have any personal bank accounts and to be obedient to the religious congregation’s superiors.  As a married man or woman, it takes courage to commit to only being with one person in the special friendship of marriage for your entire life, to only be physically intimate with that person as long as that person lives.  Any vocation, and, again, even when trying to find out what God wants us to do, takes the courage to put out into deep waters and trust that God will not abandon us in those waters.

Many of you already have discerned your vocation here.  But some of you have not.  Be courageous in answering the Lord’s call, whatever it is, in your life.  Some of you may have spectacular calls like St. Peter.  Some of you will have more quotidian or ordinary calls like me.  But don’t be afraid to answer it.  Duc in altum!

A Call, Not a Text

Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

Until I was around 25 years old, I was convinced that I was never going to have a cell phone plan that included texting.  No one texted me, and I didn’t text anyone.  It seemed like texting was really pointless.  Why not just call and talk to the person?  What was so wrong about physically hearing the voice of the other person, and what was so right about typing out a short message to the other person?  I don’t know when that exactly changed, but I remember thinking how much easier it was to ask a person if they wanted to go out to dinner, rather than going through the whole formality of, “Hi!  How you doin’?  Thanks, I’m doing well.  Hey, I was just wondering if you had dinner plans tonight.  No?  Where would you want to go?  Yeah, that’s a good place, but I just went there last week.  Want to try a different place?  Or what are you in the mood for?  Italian sounds great.  Meet you at the restaurant at 5?  Oh, ok; 5:30 then?  Great.  Talk to you later!  Bye!!”  Now it’s just, “Dinner? Italian? What time? Cya then.”  

Texting has seemed to replace calling.  Usually the only phone calls I get are from much older family members, businesses at work, and emergency calls.  Almost everyone else texts.  And yet, it means more when there’s a call.  Calling is to texting what a letter is to an email.  It just shows so much more commitment and personalization.  

Today’s readings focus us on a call from God, especially the first reading of the call of Samuel, and the Gospel with the calling of the first disciples of Jesus.  But in each case, God doesn’t send a text to Samuel, nor does Jesus text Andrew and Peter.  He personally invites them to a special relationship with him.  In the case of Samuel, God calls Samuel to be a prophet.  In the case of the disciples, Jesus calls them to leave everything behind and follow Him.  Even the Psalm takes up this theme, as we heard, “Sacrifice or offering you wished not, but ears open to obedience you gave me.  Holocausts or sin-offerings you sought not; then said I, ‘Behold I come.’”  There is a call from God that is meant for a response.

There are many calls that God makes to us.  And each involves us personally.  It’s not a group message.  When we are baptized, our name is spoken out loud in the church for the first time.  And God calls that child by name to be a saint, a holy man or woman.  That is our universal call or vocation to holiness.  When we are confirmed, our name is called once more and we are given the mission of proclaiming Jesus by how we live our lives and what we say.  That is our vocation to be evangelists.  When we commit to a vocation, after God has led us there, our name is spoken once more, and we are given a specific way of glorifying God.  We can glorify God through a vocation to serve the Church as a Deacon or a Priest in the Sacrament of Holy Order; to put on Christ in a special way, as Christ the Servant or as Christ the Head.  We can glorify God through a vocation to serve the Church as a consecrated man or woman, as a monk or nun, as a brother or sister, or as a consecrated virgin; to dedicate our entire life to Jesus and give Him all that we are.  We can glorify God through a vocation to marriage to serve the Church by witnessing Christ’s love for His Church, a love which sacrifices all for the other; to cooperate with God in forming new life and new disciples of Jesus.  Whether in the Sacrament of Holy Order, the Sacrament of Marriage, or consecrated life, God personally invites us to these ways of life as our names are proclaimed in the church.  

But in addition to the large scale calls, what we might call the macro-calls, there are also the small scale calls, what we might call the micro-calls.  These are the daily calls that God makes in our life to follow Him in a particular way.  Maybe He’s calling us to help someone at work going through a difficult time; to stop gossiping; to love more; to share; to pray for someone.  Each day the Lord invites us to follow Him.  And each day we say yes we are responding to the large scale call.  But whether macro or micro, each call requires a response.  There is no conversation with a person if we don’t answer the phone call.  There is no conversation with God if we don’t listen to what He wants to say to us and respond.  Sometimes it will come in a very powerful way that is out of the ordinary like with Samuel.  Sometimes it will come in a very mundane way that doesn’t seem like a big deal, like when Jesus told Andrew, “‘Come, and you will see.’”

Through the Eucharist which we will receive, God is extending a call to grow more deeply in union with Him, and is giving us the strength through the Body and Blood of His Son to respond to that call.  This week I encourage you to listen for the call of God.  It won’t come impersonally like in a text, but will be a personal invitation from God to love Him more and share that love with others.