Reflecting on the mission of the Church
I have been reflecting on the mission of the Church lately. It is a rather important question to ponder: what is the mission of the Church? Considering that mission ought to guide action and reflection, I feel intimidated to attempt alone to summarize a mission statement for the Universal Church. Relieved of this, I found a mission statement that I feel applies to the entire Church in a recently published USCCB (United States Conference of Catholic Bishops) National Pastoral Plan for Hispanic Ministry (page 29). It consists of three dimensions.
The mission of the Church is:
- To proclaim the Gospel
- To bring people to Jesus Christ
- To build the reign of God
This triumvirate is a foundational statement that blossoms into many areas. Proclaiming the Gospel means proclaiming the core message that Jesus is Lord! Jesus, Lord and God, died for all to save us from sin and death. Through His death and resurrection, Jesus, the perfect human, shows us what is possible — abundant life! He shows us how to live a fully human life, which is the way of holiness. Being fully who we are, fully alive, male and female, in the image and likeness of God, is the path of holiness.
When I am fully alive, I become a transformative gift to others by the way that I love them. Gifting myself to others helps them become who they are, made in God’s image and likeness. Proclaiming the Gospel is proclaiming the good news that we are made for more, more than what a life of sin and selfishness offers. We are made for heaven. This is freeing. Jesus proclaimed the good news of freedom and peace. With sin, there is no peace. Christ offers us peace!
The second point of bringing people to Jesus Christ may sound idyllic and unrealistic. How do we do this? We don’t do this by force or fear. Rather, we do this by humility and dependence. Depending on the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the Living God, we seek to build authentic parish communities of love. Real love. Christ-like love. Jesus said, “I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another” (John 13:34). There’s no selfishness in the way Jesus loves. Imagine our parishes as places where there is no competition, no selfish sense of “this is mine” or “this is my seat.” We bring people to Jesus by imitating His love and putting it into practice in our communities of faith, our parishes. Perhaps it would be good to assess our communities. Do we put Christ’s love into action in our ministries? Are our parishes places of encounter where Christ’s love is evidently present? Do we welcome children? Do we welcome families? Are our faith communities places that encourage people to be truly human, male and female, made in the image of God? Do we care for the vulnerable? We may be missionary-minded, but if we’re not missioning “at home,” then we’re missing the mark.
Building the reign of God is also something doubly complex yet simple. In this aspect of the mission of the Church, we don’t have to reinvent something. Look to Jesus, the perfect human, and learn how He built the kingdom. He healed people; He relieved people of the oppression of evil, looked sinners in the eye and told them that they mattered. I am thinking of Zacchaeus, the tax collector. “Zacchaeus, come down quickly, for today I must stay at your house” (Luke 19:5b). Jesus’s loving actions communicated that people mattered to Him and His Heavenly Father. One of the great lies of the evil one is that we don’t matter, that we are mistakes. The reign of God is about truth. Zacchaeus, come down, you matter. I must stay at your house! You are loved by my Heavenly Father, so much so that I will die for you. Powerful!
Jesus’s preaching of a strong message of repentance is an important element of His proclamation of the reign of God. We hear this at the beginning of St. Mark’s Gospel. “This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15). The 2025 Ordo (Paulist Press), a small book that gives liturgical instructions for the celebration of the liturgy every day of the year, quotes author Mark Searle, who writes about Lent. He writes about “compunction” (p. 70). What an interesting word: “compunction!”
According to Searle, Lent has two main movements. The first movement consists basically of the first three weeks. During these weeks, the liturgy moves us to “compunction!” Searle says its etymology implies “to puncture” or “to deflate.” He goes on to explain that when a person trends toward placing more confidence in himself and his own abilities than in Jesus and the Spirit, the result is sinful and prideful self-sufficiency. For example, my ego can become super-inflated as I evaluate my Lenten accomplishments and rest on my prideful laurels. This is expressed in thought processes like, “Wow, I am successful this Lent; I’ve given up chocolate, and I’ve been praying every day. I am doing great.”
I am not saying that we should not acknowledge our successes, but it is important not to see our spiritual success as solely the fruit of our doing. Searle suggests that it’s even better when we fail! Failure helps burst the bubble of our ego — failure deflates a supersized ego. I am not a failure when I fail, but failure reminds me that I am not self-sufficient or self-dependent. I need my Heavenly Father and my daily bread, my daily portion of His life, which is bestowed in multiple ways: sacraments, relationships, prayer, and charity. Searle says, “From this perspective [one of compunction], Lenten penance may be more effective if we fail in our resolutions than if we succeed, for its purpose is not to confirm us in our sense of virtue but to bring home to us our radical need of salvation” (p. 70).
Let’s live the mission of the Church with vigor this Lent: proclaim the Gospel, bring people to Jesus Christ, and build the reign of God. May we do it with humble, contrite hearts. May we do so in a spirit of compunction, beautifully combining our gifts with the Holy Spirit’s inspiration and presence.
God bless you!
