The mission of the present

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Don’t go searching long and far for the mission God gives you.  It is simple: love the Lord, and love your neighbor.  The people in your life concretely are your mission.  Not people you never see.  As Mother Teresa put it: grow where you are planted.  Love your family with their warts etc.

G. K. Chesterton

The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because they are generally the same people.

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The modern writers who have suggested, in a more or less open manner, that the family is a bad institution, have generally confined themselves to suggesting, with much sharpness, bitterness, or pathos, that perhaps the family is not always very congenial. Of course the family is a good institution because it is uncongenial. It is wholesome precisely because it contains so many divergencies and varieties. It is, as the sentimentalists say, like a little kingdom, and, like most other little kingdoms, is generally in a state of something resembling anarchy. It is exactly because our brother George is not interested in our religious difficulties, but is interested in the Trocadero Restaurant, that the family has some of the bracing qualities of the commonwealth. It is precisely because our uncle Henry does not approve of the theatrical ambitions of our sister Sarah that the family is like humanity. The men and women who, for good reasons and bad, revolt against the family, are, for good reasons and bad, simply revolting against mankind. Aunt Elizabeth is unreasonable, like mankind. Papa is excitable, like mankind. Our youngest brother is mischievous, like mankind. Grandpapa is stupid, like the world; he is old, like the world.  Those who wish, rightly or wrongly, to step out of all this, do definitely wish to step into a narrower world. They are dismayed and terrified by the largeness and variety of the family.

The people in your life concretely are your mission.

Good Samaritan – leading others to the safe-house of the Church and her sacraments that restore us to the image and likeness of God.  (Deification)

Good Samaritan is ultimately Jesus.  He often enjoys using other persons as secondary causes of his healing and mercy.

Medjugorje – Five hours of Confessions (6pm-11) outside in 80 degree weather dressed in my black clerical attire (shade and a breeze, thank God), hearing Confessions with about 30 other priests in various languages (English, Polish, Croatian, Italian, Spanish, German, Lithuanian, etc.).

The stones of the mountain.

Other pilgrims.

The Eucharist (Mass).

The rosary.

The Bible. (passages of Scripture)

Fasting.

The saints themselves.  Mary.  Therese.  Louis and Zelie Martin.

We all need to be healed.  We all should also be instruments of healing in our world.

Don’t go searching long and far for the mission God gives you.  It is simple: love the Lord, and love your neighbor.