Earlier in the evening, I attended the Saturday vigil mass with a heavy heart, weighed down by many uncertainties.
Then, there was a visiting missionary priest who asked for aid on behalf of a mission in one of the Carribean islands.
In his homily, the priest mentioned that when Christ was preaching, He always mentioned that He was sent by the Father. He was a missionary.
St. Therese of the Child Jesus of Lisieux, France is the Patroness of the Missions and her co-patron is St. Francis of Xavier.
What the homily awakened in me was that indeed, each one of us has a mission in life; we are all missionaries. And to be a missionary is to look not at one's self but to look outward, and at other people.
To always look at me, myself is being selfish. If I look at others, I will be more selfless. True love is thinking and loving more the beloved. Others would say this is nonsense, that we have to love ourselves first.
Yes, we have to love ourselves to be confident enough and to be able to love others.
All the bitterness of the day suddenly melted and crumbled.
Before I went to church, I wrote a post which was a vitriol, full of hate and self-righteousness which I promptly deleted. Ignorance breeds contempt. Self love breeds arrogance.
During Communion, the choir sang this beautiful hymn:
SEED SCATTERED AND SOWN
I have not memorized the lyrics of this hymn and it's copyrighted and not available on line.
But here are few of the lines I remember:
Seed scattered and sown
One fruit of the vine
One cup that is shared as one
The living bread
The living cup of God
Beautiful!
1 comment:
Yes, our deacon spoke this morning about how self-centered we have been. So he reminded us about "shaking the dust off our feet and channelling positive energy instead towards doing good, remembering to make CHRIST the CENTER of our lives always" so we can better fulfill our mission.
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