The Church IS a Mission

"It is not so much the case that God has a mission for his church in the world, as that God has a church for his mission in the world."

"Evangelizing is in fact the grace and vocation proper to the Church, her deepest identity. She exists in order to evangelize."

From all history, when the Father's beloved sons and daughters were taken from him, and seemingly hopelessly lost "in sin and error pining," He sent the Word to bring life and life to the full. In his "words and deeds," Jesus Christ revealed the Father, rescued broken humanity, answered every question of the human heart and made it possible that every deepest longing could be fulfilled.

To extend that possibility of life and life to the full, here and in eternity, to every time and every place, Jesus sent His Bride, the Church, gathered around, brought out of and driven back to the Eucharist. "As the Father has sent me, so I send you." The same thing Jesus was sent to do, rescue broken humanity, he sends the Church to do. That's why He made Her.

This isn't just one thing the Church does. This is who the Church *is* in Her heart.

When the Church loses sight of this inherent "why," She loses sight of Her identity, itself, and can't make sense of why she does anything. What point is there to each doctrine, moral mandate, liturgical celebration, smell, bell, rosary, statue, if this mission is lost?

Proselytizing, at the same time, is a ready and present danger. Those of us who have been in ministry for awhile have all encountered apostolates, movements, orders who seem more interested in advancing their own cause and organization than the Gospel. The organization becomes both the medium and the message, in the name of growth, or vocations, etc. To identify and call out this danger, and to encourage a more Spirit-led accompaniment model of evangelization doesn't seem to be an unfair challenge to the Church, today, as well.

It seems, recently, everyone would like to see their thing as the sine qua non and only necessitating factor of evangelization, the answer to the decline we all perceive. If we *just* had more reverent liturgy, or accompanying relationships, or kerygmatic programs/events, or a profound witness of God's care for the marginalized in the world, then millions would be instantly converted. Immediately, we presume, if we *just* did X our current predicament of a lack of true discipleship in the Church and millions fleeing engaged relationship with the faith in which they grew up would be solved.

I have always preferred a symphonic view of the process of evangelization, one that relies less on human enterprise alone to figure out the perfect strategy but instead leans into the wild and present power of God to move in the lives of those He created for Him. Why not all? Why not beauty, truth, and goodness?

When I was 18 years old, I encountered Jesus in adoration at a Steubenville Youth Conference and my life was changed forever.

But I had also grown up in a family with a deep witness of faith, and my conversion was backed by years of intercessory prayer from a worried mom about her prodigal son. And I had a pastor who provided a heroic witness of priesthood and who was building a consistent parish culture focused on evangelization, catechesis, and beautiful liturgy that pricked my conscience each week at Mass - "what if this is all real and true?" And a speaker the night before my adoration encounter had preached the story of the Gospel in a way I had never heard before. And a lay woman from the parish talked to me on the bus-ride home about her personal witness and testimony in a way that cemented for me the faith was real in other adult's lives and could be lived, that God could be known daily. And then I read a Scott Hahn book about the Eucharist that solidified that the faith was rational, real, coherent, and biblical. And my sister was a nun, which challenged me and made me curious and questioning about what could drive someone to give their whole life to God. And then I found a household community in college that challenged me to go to the heights in my discipleship.

I think one of the reasons we are looking for silver bullets in the work of evangelization, or why we want to critique this or the other solution as misguided or ineffective, is it is easier than taking honest stock of how far we actually are as a Church, in the regular context of local Catholic community, from providing a culture that lives up to the full demands of the Gospel and the complex work of evangelization.

In the meantime, while we try to figure it out, together, you bet I am going to cheer on every director of evangelization, or pastor, who is doing something good, true, or beautiful to bring people to a living relationship with Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. Because in that relationship is the only place I have found rest for my restless heart, and I can't imagine hating anyone enough to not want the same for them.

My favorite Spanish worship song is "Cancion del Misionero." The chorus, to me, perfectly captures the heart of a true missionary, not a proselytizer, but someone whose work is suffused with charity, born from a relationship with Jesus in the Eucharist, that leads them to go to their neighbor.

I'll end this post with those lyrics.

____

Llévame donde los hombres necesiten tus palabras,

necesiten tus ganas de vivir,

donde falte la esperanza donde falte la alegría,

simplemente por no saber de ti.

____

PS, as a Catholic, I would qualify the above to say that confecting the communion of the Church, here and hereafter, is absolutely the true and final telos of mission, as well.

PPS, if the Church has lost sight of this mission and identity, it would be my hope that a National Eucharistic Revival, a prophetic invitation to a rekindled living encounter with the living Christ, which reveals the Church's identity in it's reality, would help remind the Church of that identity and mission.