"I Have No Other Plan" Oct 22, 2021

S.D. Gordon has a beautiful story about the Ascension of Jesus into Heaven. When the grand welcome ceremony was over, the Archangel Gabriel approached Jesus to resolve his doubts. He said, “I know that only very few in Palestine are aware of the great work of human salvation You have accomplished through Your suffering, death and Resurrection. But the whole world should know and appreciate it and become Your disciples, acknowledging You as their Lord and Savior. What is Your plan of action?” Jesus answered, “I have told all My Apostles to tell other people about Me and preach My Message through their lives. That’s all.” “Suppose they don’t do that?” Gabriel asked. “What’s your Plan B?” Jesus replied, “I have no other plan; I am counting on them.” As we prepare to celebrate World Mission Sunday, the Church reminds us that Jesus is counting on each one of us to make Him known, loved, and accepted by others around us.

The Church, according to Vatican Council II, is “missionary” in her very nature because her founder, Jesus Christ, was the first missionary. God the Father sent God the Son into the world incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth, His Christ, with a message. This message, called the Gospel or the Good News, is explicitly stated in John 3:16: “For God loved the world so much that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him may not die, but have eternal life.”  John further clarifies Jesus’ message in his epistle: “God sent His only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.” (I Jn 4:9). St. Paul writes to Timothy about the Church’s mission: “God desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the Truth.” (I Tim. 2:4). Thus, the evangelizing mission of the Church is essentially the announcement of God’s love, mercy, forgiveness, and salvation, as these are revealed to mankind through the life, death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, our Lord. The Gospels show us how Jesus demonstrated this all-embracing and unconditional love of God by His life, suffering, death, and Resurrection.

Jesus, the first missionary, made a permanent arrangement for inviting all men throughout the ages to share God’s love and salvation: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you.” (Mt 28:19). Therefore, the Council Fathers of the Second Vatican Council declared that the Church of Christ “is missionary in its origin and nature.” Hence, it follows that the mission of the Church is the mission of every member of the Church, and is not reserved for the priests, the religious, and the active missionaries alone. Thus, every Christian is a missionary with a message to share — the message of God’s love, liberation, and eternal salvation.

Hence, on this World Mission Sunday, let us learn to appreciate our missionary obligation and support the Church’s missionary activities by leading transparent Christian lives, by fervent prayers, and by generous donations. Pope Benedict XVI concluded his 2006 Mission Sunday message thus: “May the Virgin Mary, who collaborated actively in the beginning of the Church’s mission with her presence beneath the Cross and her prayers in the Upper Room, sustain their action and help believers in Christ to be ever more capable of true love, so that they become sources of living water in a spiritually thirsting world.”

Fr. Robert T. Cooper, Pastor
Divine Mercy Parish and St. Elizabeth Ann Seton School