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Prayer - the Beginning and Foundation of Discipleship
My last post went on and on about how great and necessary prayer is for you (and the rest of the communion of saints - on earth, and in purgatory and heaven). But, as Archbishop Tobin (the speaker for our day of recollection that just ended) noted in his talks, the Christian life has another facet - that of missionary.
Archbishop Tobin, in his first talk last night, started by noting the tension that exists between Christ calling us to Himself and sending us forth to preach. Mark 3:13: "And he went up into the hills, and called to him those whom he desired; and they came to Him." Here we find Jesus calling His disciples to follow Him. So far, other than the call to be "fishers of men" (Mark 1:17) that Jesus mentioned to Simon and Andrew, the apostles don't know what they are getting into. Jesus has just asked them to listen to Him and watch what He does. But, look a few chapters later: Mark 6:7 "And he called to him the twelve, and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. He charged them to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts; but to wear sandals and not put on two tunics." Here, again, Jesus calls the apostles to Himself, but this time, after they have been listening and watching Him for a while, Jesus sends them out in His name with His authority.
Archbishop Tobin named these two halves of the Christian life that of disciple and missionary. The disciple follows and listens to Jesus, and the missionary goes out with the Gospel message to proclaim it to the world. In other words, the discipleship portion, according to the Archbishop, has to do with prayer, and the missionary portion, has to do with evangelization. Now, I don't think he meant the terms to be terribly strict with these terms, as he pointed out, you really can't separate these tasks. Prayer and work, faith and evangelization, listening and acting, have to go together - they both are parts of the same whole. But, as +Tobin said, just because these two things go together, doesn't mean that they always are easy to balance. It's hard sometimes to pray and work, to find when one must leave the chapel and "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole creation." - Mark 16:15
There is a tension here, some people find it better or more fulfilling to do one half and not the other. However, both halves are absolutely necessary to each other. If one doesn't pray (and study, I suppose) about Jesus, how are you supposed to know what Gospel to preach, what actions to do? On this point, Archbishop said that following Jesus isn't so much copying His actions (teaching, healing, praying, forgiving), but going deeper and copying His motivation.
What is that motivation? - Love. Radical, unconditional, non-sensical love. Think of Jesus on the cross - God came down to earth, became man, and then let us kill him, in the worst way possible, to show us His love and to make us sons and daughters of Him. Think about that! Think of Jesus in the Eucharist - Here Jesus Christ, God almighty, allows the human priest to have the power/authority to say "this is my body" and have that host transubstantiate into Jesus Christ - body, blood, soul, and divinity. Wow! When we say God is love, and we should be loving too, this isn't the soft, fluffy, sort of love that so often our world has. (The love of another because of something you can get, or something you gain) God doesn't gain something by loving us - He is God, He doesn't need anything else. God created the human race, knowing the whole "time" (of course God isn't in time, but that's a topic for another day) that He would come down to redeem us, out of total, life giving, absolutely generous love. Jesus' motivation, that we should imitate, and that should transform us to then do what Jesus did, is radical love. "[L]ove your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the selfish. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful." - Luke 6:35-36
Crazy right! OK, so this love, that we receive so awesomely in the Eucharist, must then go beyond us, and from us, to the rest of the world. This is the missionary "side" of following Christ, and this was the topic of Archbishop Tobin's second talk - and another post.
I just would like to make a brief connection between this topic - the first "half" of following Christ, found in contemplation, prayer, discernment, learning, et cetera (hopefully leading to radical, Christ-like love) - to the readings that we had today for Mass. Bishop Coyne had Mass for us this morning and in His homily he connected the parables we hear in the Gospel (shepherd finding lost sheep, woman finding lost coin, and the prodigal son) to the joy and mercy that are fundamental to the Gospel life. Each of these parables ends with joy; when the person finds what had been lost. In the story of the prodigal son great mercy is shown by the father to the son that had disowned him. Of course, I could go on more about this need for joy and mercy (as +Coyne did), but this post has gone on enough, and I'll have to save the other topics for another time...
Super recap: Archbishop Tobin, in his talks, looked at both halves of living the Christian life - disciple and missionary, listener and preacher, pray-er and evangelizer. The first half means following Christ through forming ourselves interiorly around Him. This means coming to appreciate Christ's motivation, loving without counting the cost, and emulating it. Obviously, this love, found so beautifully on Calvary and in the Eucharist (the same sacrifice), must "infect" us and transform us to show the joy and mercy of God to others. That exterior transformation and action, the topic of his second talk, will (hopefully) be the topic of a subsequent post.
Have a wonderful Sunday!
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