With joy and hope we welcome the Apostles of the Interior Life this weekend for the Lenten Parish Mission! After giving the Lenten Mission last year, we are grateful for their return, and this “phase II” of what the Apostles began here in 2015. In this bulletin article, I’d like to highlight the Parish Mission and conclude with some reflections on the Year of Mercy – which is the inspiration behind the theme of this year’s 2016 Mission.
“How can we hear God’s voice in prayer? When God speaks, what does He say? What does His voice sound like?” This series of questions has a similar ring of frustration wondering honestly if it’s possible to hear from God (Ps 95:7b). Is it possible to hear God’s inner voice of love in your personal life, regarding your personal situation(s)? These and other related topics in meditative, contemplative prayer are what the Apostles of the Interior Life hope to communicate this weekend. Not only that, but there will be much time spent on the “outward movement of discipleship” that happens in a parish community after we begin to hear from God in prayer. This is what role Divine Providence has allowed the Apostles to play in our history here at St. Charles for the past two years.
This year’s Lenten Mission will focus on our vocation to become missionary disciples during the Year of Mercy by first, hearing God’s voice in prayer; and secondly by acting on those promptings in an outward movement of personal discipleship that only we can fulfill in our daily lives. The Holy Father, Pope Francis, has charged this Year of Mercy with some very concrete action steps! He wants us to identify the poor in our lives and get close to them. But, Pope Francis does not only want us to get close to the poor. The Holy Father wants us to find new ways to help get Jesus Christ closer to our poor as well. He wants us to take up the Spiritual and Corporeal Works of Mercy (a big focus of the Parish Mission). He also wants Christians to become the living face of the Father’s mercy in the world.
Last, a major goal of this Parish Mission is to establish small meditative prayer groups, or Small Christian Prayer Communities here at St. Charles, that center on this type of listening, often officially called “mental prayer” (I Kings 19:11-13). With prayer as the foundation for everything in the Christian life including active reception of the seven sacraments, the fulfillment of our primary vocation, evangelization and any missionary activity or apostolate, God will do what He wills in a community that truly prays. All of this and the Year of Mercy to “buckle down” and become disciples!
Regarding the Year of Mercy, which is the context of this Lenten Mission, I’d like to offer you a “Mercy Sandwich” to understand the Pope’s intentions with the focus being “merciful like the Father.” First, the bottom bun of the sandwich, if you will, and its foundation: mercy is predicated upon the reality of sin in our world. If there were no sin, we would not need mercy. Here the Pope affirms Jesus’s once and for all sacrifice that definitively acknowledges sin and accomplishes our redemption. This Year of Mercy aims to allow Jesus to treat people who have been deeply wounded by sin through the ministry of the Church, the primary vehicle which mediates mercy, which the Pope likens to a “field hospital”. Next, the burger or sandwich middle: mercy itself. In the Christian paradigm, mercy is gained at the ultimate price. Mercy is that Divine Love which turns toward the sinner and is now mediated to the world through the person of Christ and from Christ through the sacraments of the Church by the power of the Holy Spirit, especially Reconciliation and Holy Eucharist. During the Year of Mercy I pray you will pour on a thick, juicy, healthy portion of the Sacraments of Reconciliation and Holy Eucharist. Last in the analogy of this “Mercy Sandwich” is the top bun: conversion of heart.
While mercy is predicated upon the reality and acknowledgement of sin, mercy precedes conversion which is the freedom for which Christ came to set us free regarding (Gal 5:1). After we’ve acknowledged the reality of our personal sin and the reality of communal sin in the world, we receive mercy and bring mercy forth to the world in order to be converted and to change. We work simultaneously on changing ourselves in conversion and helping to change the world in the spirit of conversion. Therefore, three key pieces are required to act during this Year of Mercy: 1) the acknowledgement of the reality of sin, 2) the mercy of Christ which redeems the world and 3) conversion and authentic freedom in this new light. God bless our shared Lenten Mission and Year of Mercy!
Benjamin Darnell, M.Div.