Understanding the terms

Whenever we begin a new discussion, it's helpful to be attentive to the definition of terms, especially those that will play a major part in the ensuing work. That's were we began the input sessions today.

This retreat is all about Mission and Discipleship, so Father Gittins began today with a reminder that if human beings truly understand the meaning of penance, we must see it not as something we do because we've been bad, but rather as something we engage in so that we can change ourselves. If penance is understood in this light, it becomes not a moment of chastisement, but rather a moment of promise, enabling us to start afresh and to engage in the process of spreading the Good News.

Putting things in perspective, he explained that the term Mission has become somewhat of a household word, as we have seen everyone from major corporations to the Church itself, defining a mission for itself. To understand this term though, we need to take a step back, and think of it as God's job description. God is the subject of Mission, and the Mission to be accomplished is God's alone. None of us can do anything but cooperate in the plan of God, at least in terms of bringing this Mission to fruition. The Mission of God (Missio Dei) is therefore to spread goodness throughout the world (Bonum diffusivum), and we get the great privilege of cooperating in this great work.

None of us has ever seen God and yet, although we have difficulty difining God in human terminology, we have no difficulty at all understanding his Mission because the work of God was made known in it's perfection by Jesus, who was sent by God to become one of us. Just as Mission is the work of God alone, the work of Evangelization is a job description for the work Jesus accomplished. Evangelization includes four major facets: proclamation, witness, dialogue and liberation. All of Jesus' life was spent doing these things, in various ways; all of our lives as disciples should therefore be focused on doing these things as well.

If Mission is the God's work, and Evangelization is Jesus' task, we as followers of Jesus must be about the task of discipleship. Our work must therefore be about proclaiming the good work made known to us in the life of Jesus Christ, but it also entails witnessing to this truth by the way we witness to our faith in the world. We must be willing to dialogue with others as we invite them too to discover the blessings that Jesus came to proclaim, and we must not only be willing to be set free by the gospel, but also open to setting others free by the words we speak and the work we do.