Mission Possible?
As we hear in the gospel, Christ proclaims that "all things have been handed over to me by my Father." Jesus was given, and accepted, a mission of love and salvation for the world. As members of Christ's Body through Baptism, we too participate in that mission, whether we are in church or at the store. For us, every moment of life is an apostolic moment; we are sent in to the world for the sake of the world.
Answering that call is intentional discipleship in action--living our lives so that others might encounter Christ and find rest beneath his yoke. Not an easy task as we try and balance the oftentimes competing demands of our own pursuits--yet our mission field is precisely those areas of life which we inhabit, bringing the love and the healing of Christ to all those we meet.
How prepared do you feel for this mission?
posted by Keith Strohm @ 6:34 AM
2 Comments
2 Comments:
I'd say the greatest challenge I've faced in evangelizing at school or at work has been my tendency toward fideism.
That is, I regarded my faith as essentially an individual revelation -- something that I believed because of a certain existing relationship with God. I could witness by my actions or I could say what I believed. But if someone asked me why they should believe, my tendency would be to suggest that God needed to make Himself known to them in an interior way. And thus there is a phenomenon of an orthodox Catholic unable to propose the faith as something pertinent to life.
A consequence of this attitude was that I regarded my friendships with others in an instrumentalist way, tending to argue them toward the Church or to lose interest in them when they didn't move toward the Church.
Fred
Perhaps because of my confessional Lutheran roots I have a tendency to approach evangelization from an intellectual viewpoint. Although for me personally faith is very much a personal relationship with Jesus Christ I tend to blather about church history, patristics, the ecumenical councils and, by the way, have I discussed concepts such as the kerygma and eschatology with you yet ??!! :)
Grrrr!
St. Paul, whose intellect towers over mine, preached Christ Jesus and him crucified.
I need to learn to do the same!
Other than that, I am not at all uncomfortable having faith discussions with people in general.
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