My mission – your mission

 

 My mother often told me as a child that we are each born with a mission. You have something to do for God that only you can do. No one else can fill your space. She was a wise deep little woman and how right she was comes home to me when I hear St. Teresa speaking of the dignity and beauty of every single person made in the image and likeness of God. He dwells within us. If only we could grasp how precious each of us is in His sight – with what tenderness He bends over each one of us. St. John Henry Newman had a sense of it in his beautiful prayer.

The mission of my life

 God has created me to do Him  some definite service. He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission. I may never know it in this life but I shall be told it in the next.

 I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall do good; I shall do His work.

 I shall be an angel of peace, while not intending it if I do but keep his commandments.

 Therefore , I will trust Him, whatever I am, I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness will serve Him, in perplexity, my perplexity may serve him. If I am in sorrow , my sorrow, may serve Him. He does nothing in vain. He knows what He is about. He may take away my friends. He may throw me among strangers. He may make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide my future from me. Still, He knows what He is about.

  Dear Reader let God’s Living Word from the liturgy confirm you in your mission: "Think of the love the Father has lavished on us by letting us be called God’s children…"

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Storms and springtime

Image
At this time of year, the weather here in Ireland vacillates between cold winter storms and warm bright days with a taste of springtime. This can happen even within the same day! In the midst of particularly bad storms, like we had recently with Storm Isha, and especially for those whose homes or property was damaged, it is hard to imagine the good and pleasant days of late spring and summer. Similarly, on a lovely warm spring afternoon like we had here in Dublin a few days ago, with temperatures hitting record highs for January, it is hard to remember that only a few days previously the top came off our old monkey puzzle tree trunk in Storm Isha! This reminds me of the verse from the Book of Ecclesiasticus (Sirach): “At a time of prosperity, adversity is forgotten, and at a time of adversity, prosperity is not remembered” (Sir 11:25). Isn’t human life just like this? We have storms and sunshine at different times during our lives. Hopefully nobody has a lifetime full of only storm...
Read more

The life of Alfred Batzdorf

Image
  I heard recently that Alfred Batzdorf died on April 2nd 2022, at Santa Rosa, California, aged 100. Alfred was the husband of Edith Stein’s niece Susanne, now 101. Together they have done great work to promote holocaust awareness. In November 1988, the Batzdorffs’ began speaking publicly to churches, community groups and schools about their flight from Nazi Germany. Alfred, known as Al was born in February 1922 in Breslau, Germany. In 1994 he gave an oral history interview for the holocaust Memorial Project. He told of his experience on Kristallnacht November 9th-10th 1938, that terrible Night of Broken Glass, when synagogues and Jewish businesses were destroyed and over 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and sent to concentration camps. Al’s father who was a surgeon had already registered for emigration and was in Berlin that night. On the morning of 10th the storm troopers entered the Batzdorff’s apartment intending to arrest him but when they found he was away they took Alfred ...
Read more

Friendship with God

Image
For many people Lent is a time to give up things, perhaps things that could be harmful to us if taken in excess, like smoking, drinking alcohol or overeating.  Forgoing such things can be a good discipline and improve our health, but the real purpose of giving things up in Lent is to unite with Jesus 40 days of fasting in the desert.   Some saints and spiritual writers see a more basic call to give up all that is not necessary to make room for God to enter and fill us with his Loving merciful presence. Among our Carmelite writers we see it especially in St. John of the Cross, but even further back we find similar ideas expressed by Johann Tauler (1300-1365). He was a Dominican priest and theologian and was a follower of Meister Eckhart, but he holds his own place as one of the Rhineland Mystics, who stressed friendship with God.  He wrote: It is certain that if God is to be born in the soul it must turn back to eternity. It must turn in towards itself with all i...
Read more