You ARE Mission:  Listening with the Ear of One’s Heart

by Barbara Ann Mullen, CSJ

(reprinted with permission from LCWR, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious)

 

Benedict of Nursia admonished those who wished to follow in the footsteps of Christ to be vigilant, always—to listen with the ear of one’s heart. (1) What an extraordinary thought, letting the beat of our hearts inform us of who we are as women religious on mission and of how we may engage with the world in life-giving and help-filled ways.

Our original and primary mission is to be a LOVER.  At baptism, as water and oil are poured over our foreheads, the priest or deacon proclaimed, “The Christian community welcomes you with great joy.  In its name, I claim you for Christ our Savior by the sign of his cross.”  Anthony J. Gittens expressed it this way: “By virtue of Baptism, everyone is called to BE, supposed to BE, capable of being a missionary.” (2)  The call is both mystery and reality.  From the moment of baptismal blessing, we began a journey into the heart of God, into the center of a love that we may never entirely understand until we find ourselves folded into the communion of saints.

Cardinal John Henry Newman wrote, “Each of us has a mission not entrusted to anyone else.” (3) When asked to identify ourselves, we often share our name and congregation.  Then, we move quickly into our ministerial call as nurses, educators, social workers, lawyers, volunteers, retired prayer partners, etc.  What we do – our ministry – becomes the identifier, an automatic response.  When was the last time you identified yourself as a lover?

To believe that “you ARE mission” invites us to explore God’s original call and discover how we are invited to love large at every stage of life.  A lover needs to respond to that call as the ears of one’s heart stay attuned to hear the vibrations of God’s invitation.  Moreover, each day, we offer a slightly different response to our call, depending on changing life and congregational realities.  We do not choose to “be” mission one day—and not be an expression of it the next day.  As we change (physically, emotionally, spiritually), we are mission until we take our last breath.  We might say that when baptized, we start mission.  During the years God grants us, suggests Gittens, “our mission responsibility challenges us to proclaim the integrity of the Good News, proclaim salvation, and announce the Reign of God.  No baptized person is exempt from this call.” (4) To be mission implies that according to age and stamina, everyone is invited to participate in life-giving relational experiences in the world.

The Original Lover who claimed us from the beginning of time and reached out to touch mind and heart with a more profound desire to offer ourselves in vowed life did not equate mission, the call to be mission, with any particular associated ministry of service.  True, some type of ministry would become integral to our religious lives.  Yet, living into mission, into the call to love large, is who we are as women religious, and is not dependent on what we do.

Mission keeps us on tiptoe, encouraging us to scan the horizon and its changing landscape.  Tiptoeing also means living with a certain amount of risk, not knowing how the call will invite us to a more profound expression of the loving presence of Christ in the world on any given day.  Our vowed lives have a singular purpose, but only in relationship with others.  We pledged ourselves to a congregation.  In return, it promised and committed itself to us by supporting and encouraging our vocation and the common goal to love large.

Anticipating new horizons and supporting individual members of our congregation in their continued growth over a lifetime can be an exciting part of mission for leaders.  Margaret Wheatley writes, “Organizations don’t change by imposing any new model on them; there is no new reality ‘out there’ awaiting some revelation.  No recipes, formulas, checklists, or advice help us understand emergence.  There is only what we create through engagement with each other, with all others and events.” (5)  Mission is new, different, and unique depending on our personal and congregational circumstances.  We adapt and find ourselves in new spaces never before imagined.  There is fluidity in this changing horizon, the narrative of congregational life – and there is self-renewing potential as well.

Perhaps living mission challenges all of us to dream with an evolutionary spirit – to lean into the heart of a Loving God and then spiral out to the world ablaze with renewed energy.  We engage as we can with total commitment according to our changing physical, emotional, and spiritual capabilities – without trying to hold on to the past or mourning the losses we experience in a lifetime.  Ilia Delio, OSF frames it thus: “If you stay true to your mission (and I invite you to hear your journey into the heart of God over your lifetime), you will change the world around you because you are changed in the process of the journey. (6)

Mission for the sake of the Gospel may look different as we move through the various stages of our lives.  Diminished numbers, increased median ages, and fewer entrants are realities in our congregations.  What will lead us into the future such that we witness in our world God’s love as ever present and alive?  It may be our example of what it means to be courageous in the shifting times of religious life.  It might be our letting the original call to be a lover enlarge the capacity to be present in the here and now.  We do not have the luxury to quit loving, to stop being the face of our Lavish God who first loved us into being.  At every age—acknowledging personal and collective changes—we dance with the Sacred One, allowing the music of love to guide us forward.  The mission dance does not end.  Only as we draw our last earthly breath will we fully comprehend our lifetime call to love large and how we succeeded in dancing to the mission song.

Amma Syncletica of Alexandria cautioned her nuns: “If you find yourself in a monastery, do not go to another place, for that will harm you greatly.  Be peaceful wherever you find yourself, at any age.  Just as the bird who abandons the egg she was sitting on prevents it from hatching, the nun or monk who grows cold in faith and hope dies when they go from one place to another trying to find what they believe is missing.” (7) Hold on to hope for the sake of the world.  Anticipate that newness lies inside each congregational member and will always find its way into the world.  Listen with the ear of your heart – to the Heart of God whispering to your soul.  Oh, don’t forget to love large and dance!

 

Endnotes

1. Benedict of Nursia OSB, (480-547 AD) often known as Saint Benedict, was an Italian Christian monk, writer, and theologian.
2. Anthony J. Gittens CSSp, Ministry at the Margins, Orbis Books, April 2002, p. 11
3. John Henry Newman (1801-1890) was an English theologian, academic, scholar, and poet.
4. Gittens, op. cit., p. 12
5. Margaret Wheatley, Leadership and the New Science: Discovering Order in a Chaotic World, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 3^rd edition, September 2006, p. 9, introduction
6. Ilia Delio, The Unbearable Wholeness of Being: God, Evolution, and the Power of Love, Orbis Books, 3^rd edition, April 1, 2013
7. Amma Syncletica, “Desert Mother,” died in her 80^th year, around 350 AD.