The Need for Mission

Fr. Michael, Saint Petroc Magazine, Vol. III, No. 4, December, 2000.
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We are nothing if we are not about spreading the Truth of Christ, the whole Truth of Christ.

This includes being unwilling to pass over the problem of what The Church is, and what is not The Church.

That said however, our purpose is to bring people to The Church, for there, and there alone (as far as we can know) they are in a position to be healed. Just as with seriously ill people, we bring them to the hospital, for there and there alone is the full range of expertise, equipment and medicine to heal the body, so too, we bring the spiritually ill to The Church, for there and there alone is the full range of means to heal the soul.

True, The Church often fails to use her equipment properly. True, some of her physicians are not able to attend as we wish. True, some are sick themselves, but The Church is still the best hope of healing that people have, so there, to The Church, we bring them.

If we criticise The Church for the failings of her bishops, priests, and people, what can we do about it? We can each look to himself, to his own failings. We can ensure to the best of our ability that we struggle against our own failings. Of course, left to our own devices, we will fail even more.

We need a will - Christ's will, we need to align ourselves with His will, we need His strength, for we can only fulfill our task, we can only heal, in His Name. We must be quite certain in our own minds that we are constantly seeking to align our will with His will and to do His bidding. This much we know: That it is His will that we should go out and seek the spiritually ill and bring them home to Christ our Master.

We do not say to them "I can heal you", we say "come to my Master, He can heal you". When they ask "Where is your Master?" we say "He is with His people, the people He has called out from the crowd to come and be healed by Him, just as He is now calling you." Spreading the whole, healing Truth of Christ, bringing people home to our Master and His people - The Church.