Oct. 25, 2020: 30th Sunday A
Oct. 25, 2020: 30th Sunday A
Have you ever written a mission statement for yourself? Normally, organizations and businesses formulate a mission statement to help them stay aligned with the values they find most important and ensure that they focus on the way they want to impact the world. A mission statement provides the following information: Who we are, what we want to accomplish, and who we strive to help. A personal mission statement defines the values you find the most important and sets clear boundaries on everything you do--how you spend your time and money, how you form relationships, and what you will and will not accept in your life.
So why do we need a personal mission statement? Some have mentioned to me that they’re just not feeling and acting like they used to. The driving force behind their prayer life, joy, and enthusiasm has dried up. They feel like they’ve lost their focus or direction. It’s probably good to reflect on what is the driving force that is guiding, controlling, or directing our lives at this moment. Are we being driven by a problem, pressure, guilt, fear, or an unconscious belief? As disciples of Christ, our faith should help us to navigate challenging times. Perhaps we could use a personal mission statement to guide us. So where do we start in formulating a personal mission statement? Our Lord gave us a great starting point with his reply to the question in today’s Gospel.
When a Pharisee asked about which commandment is the greatest, Jesus replied, "You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind..:You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” The first part of this two-fold commandment comes from the Shema prayer of the Book of Deuteronomy, “ Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone! Therefore, you shall love the Lord, your God, with your whole heart, and with your whole being, and with your whole strength.” This prayer is the centerpiece of Jewish prayer life and is the first prayer that Jewish parents teach to their children. St. Joseph and the Blessed Mother taught this prayer to child Jesus. As a family they would have prayed this prayer the first thing in the morning and the last thing at night before going to sleep. It is a custom for Hebrews to kiss the Mezuzah, a small case on their door post containing a parchment with the Shema prayer, before entering and leaving their home to remind themselves of their life mission to love God with their entire being. Does your family have a prayer custom at home? Perhaps you pray in the morning, at meal time, and in the evening. What prayer could we recite that is similar to the Shema prayer that keeps God as the center of our whole being?
For us Christians, making the Sign of the Cross is the center of our prayer life. We begin and end all of our prayers with the Sign of the Cross, asking the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit to be with us in all we do. It’s not simply an action, but it’s a prayer in itself. As we make the Sign of the Cross, we profess the deepest mysteries of the Christian Faith: that God became one of us, with a human body and soul; that he died on the cross to save us; and that our own bodies and souls share in the same power of the Savior whereby we are freed from sin and death and brought to the resurrection and the life of heaven.
The second part of Jesus’ commandment, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” flows from the love that God has for his people. We love God because He first loved us; our love for Him is in response to that gracious, undeserved gift. Our love for God can only be concretely expressed by our love for our neighbor. God revealed to St. Catherine of Siena why loving God is expressed through loving our neighbor: “I ask you to love me with the same love with which I love you…You cannot give me the kind of love I ask of you. This is why I have put you among your neighbors: so that you can do for them what you cannot do for me- that is love them…And whatever you do for them I will consider done for me.” (Dialogue of St. Catherine of Siena, #64) In the Book of Exodus, God instructs us to pay particular attention to the needy who cannot repay us back, such as the foreigners, widows, and orphans. Our Lord reminded us, “For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have? ... So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matthew 5:46-48)
So if we put these two commandments of Jesus into a personal mission statement, what would it look like. Mother Teresa offers us an example:
“Holiness is not the luxury of the few; it is a simple duty, for you and me. God has created us in His image and likeness enabling us to know Him, love Him, and serve Him in this world, so as to be happy with Him forever in the life to come. This is the true purpose of life. To live our lives with this aim, our lives have to be woven with prayer. We must live our lives beautifully and not allow the spirit of the world that makes gods out of power, riches, and pleasures make us forget that we have been created for greater things--to love and to be loved. Do ordinary things with extraordinary love.”
Mother Teresa showed us how to weave a life of prayer and service with love for God and neighbor. If we find ourselves feeling empty or dry, it is good to ask ourselves, when was the last time I truly prayed? When was the last time that I forgot about myself and helped someone in need? Have I replaced my love for God with something or someone? Have I been faithful to my personal mission to love God with my whole being and to love my neighbor as myself? Our Lord reminds us again that if we truly desire to live a mission focused life, we must put Him at the center and make every opportunity to love our neighbor as ourselves.
