KNOW YOUR MISSION AND OFFICES
Discover your mission orders and your positions of responsibility to change the world
Download the one-page Executive Summary here for mass distribution.
Download the one-page Executive Summary here for mass distribution.
WHAT’S MY MISSION?
Not
just secret agents, but everyone is eager and excited to know their
mission orders – the objectives and tasks we are sent to accomplish, the
contribution people expect of us, the meaning and purpose of our life.
When we were baptized, says the Bible, we “put on Christ.” That is why we can exclaim, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.” (Gal 3:20; 2:20) Christ lives in me! “We
have become not just Christians, but Christ himself,” cried St.
Augustine. (CCC 795) Who is Christ who lives in me? Jesus Christ is God
himself who became man for only one mission:
to save all men from sin and make us one with God. The name of Jesus
means “God saves”. And the word christ means “messiah”, people who have
been consecrated by God for a saving mission: priests, prophets, and
kings.
As another Christ, we have only one mission: to bring all men to love God with all their strength,
and we have a responsibility to exercise his three offices that fulfil
his one mission. These offices are the solutions to the great evils all
men suffer due to sin. Our priestly office addresses the lack of sanctifying grace, a share in God’s life, without which we cannot enter heaven. Our prophetic office solves people’s ignorance, lack of knowledge of God and his plan, “the origin of all moral deviations”. (CCC 2087) Our kingly office addresses our wayward tendencies and passions.
If
a Christian does not exercise Christ’s mission and responsibilities, he
is like salt that “has lost its taste,” said Jesus. “It is no longer
good for anything except to be thrown out and trodden under foot by
men.” (Mt 5:13)
OUR SPECIAL VOCATION: let your light shine before men
Christ told us: “You are the light of the world,” and so the Christian laity’s special vocation that we should know best is “to seek the kingdom of God by engaging in secular affairs and directing them according to God's will ... to enlighten and put in order all things in the world." (CCC 898)
Christ told us: “You are the light of the world,” and so the Christian laity’s special vocation that we should know best is “to seek the kingdom of God by engaging in secular affairs and directing them according to God's will ... to enlighten and put in order all things in the world." (CCC 898)
It
is in the midst of our world, our home, the office, the streets, in
places of entertainment, in the mall, in government, business, and
media, that we are called to find God, and to make Christ’s superabundant love, mercy and wisdom permeate all things. We have “the preeminent responsibility to work so that the divine message of salvation may be known and accepted by all men throughout the earth.” (Vat II, AA; CCC 900)
To accomplish this, we are called to take initiative:
not to wait passively for others to make a move, but to take the first
step in making things happen, beginning a chain of events that can
Christianize the world. We are tasked to be creative: “discovering or inventing the means
for permeating social, political, and economic realities” with the
beauty, harmony and supreme joy that comes from the fullness of love and
truth. (CCC 900)
OUR PRIESTLY OFFICE: Union with Jesus, praying and offering sacrifices to sanctify the world from within
We
will be able to put order in the world only if we are put order in our
lives. If we put God first in everything, others second and ourselves
last. "He who abides in me, and I in him, bears much fruit,” Jesus told us. “For without me you can do nothing"
(Jn 15:5). If we are intimately one with Jesus, all our “works,
prayers, and apostolic undertakings, family and married life, daily
work, relaxation of mind and body, even the hardships of life patiently
born - all these become spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God.” By offering all these at Mass, we take part in the Sacrifice of Christ on the cross that
saves all men through time. (CCC 901) The saints, who allow God to
work by praying always, are the best reformers of society.
The
one purpose of our life is to love God with all our heart, a love that
impels us to know him deeply: to meditate on his teachings that come to
us through his Church, especially its Bible and Catechism, to go
frequently to confession and the Eucharist, where his love is poured
into us. “The love of Christ urges us,” sets us on fire, impelling us to
save many souls. (CCC 864)
OUR PROPHETIC OFFICE: Evangelizing and teaching the faith
“Thanks
solely to this encounter with God’s love, which blossoms into an
enriching friendship, we are liberated.” taught Pope Francis. We are
freed from sin and inner emptiness, and we are filled with the joy of
the truth. “For if we have received the love which restores meaning to
our lives, how can we fail to share that love with others?”
It
is above all with a life lived in God who is Love that we evangelize,
and a key part of this life is to obey his last command: Go and make disciples of all nations... teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. (Mt 28:19-20) This Great Commission still echoes, and should be echoed by us to many Catholics who have forgotten it.
Pope Francis stressed: Every Christian is challenged, here and now, to be actively engaged in evangelization...What
about you? ... Sharing our enthusiasm “falls to each of us as a daily
responsibility... bringing the Gospel to the people we meet, whether
they be our neighbors or complete strangers. This takes place in the
middle of a conversation... on
the street, in a city square, during work, on a journey.” Training in
this “should start with the children's earliest education. Parents
should teach them little by little to be solicitous for the material and
spiritual needs of their neighbour,” recalling that the spiritual is
above the material. (Vat II; Mt 4:4)
As
prophets who speak of Christ, it is very important that we often meet
Christ, to learn him well in the four parts of his Church’s Catechism
(the Creed, Sacraments, Morality and Prayer) and be involved in helping people meet him in catechesis.
First, in our family through family Sunday school, and then to as many
people as we can reach: by teaching, spreading catechetical materials
and using the means of social communication. The Church’s “increase in
numbers, even more her inner growth and correspondence with God’s plan depend essentially on catechesis.” (CCC 7)
OUR
KINGLY OFFICE: Correcting common practices that breed sins, and
effectively permeating education, culture, media, business and
government, and other social institutions with true moral values
Our first duty as kings is to rule over our self.
Christ, the true King, reigns by giving his life on the cross in
obedience to the Father, and through his sacraments he sends us his
powerful graces to “deny ourselves” and to “overcome the reign of sin”.
“That man is rightly called a king who makes his own body an obedient
subject and, by governing himself with suitable rigor, refuses to let
his passions breed rebellion in his soul.” (CCC 908)
"Moreover, by uniting their forces let the laity so remedy the institutions and conditions of the world when the latter are an inducement to sin, that these may be conformed to the norms of justice, favoring rather than hindering the practice of virtue. By so doing they will impregnate culture and human works with a moral value." (CCC 909)
Starting in their family and workplace, citizens should take part in public life as far as possible. (Comp 410) We are called to make the greatest possible impact, helping people to understand and live true moral values:
Download the one-page Executive Summary here for mass distribution.
Note: These one-page leaflets have started going viral around the world. Leaflets were posted in the website of the Archdiocese of Westminster in London ("The Mother Church of England") and in the Corpus Christi Parish in Canada, in Kenya and in Macau. To get the full collection, please see this: One Page Leaflets for New Evangelization Starting to Go Viral!
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