Transcending Mission

All of us have a mission. There is something each one of us is called to do with our lives. You might have already discovered it. You might have been given it, or some situation may have drawn it out from you. It might have remained hidden from you for years and years, and perhaps it is still a secret to you. But for each one of us, there is a mission, one thing each of us has been called to do with our lives.

That mission we carry everywhere and the measure of our love is whether we fulfil its promise time and time again in many situations. I'm not talking about something big here, though it may be. Perhaps its just one quality that we're asked to share, time and time again in many situations. I've been mulling over my own and today I have been thinking that perhaps its enough just to listen. By being attentive to others, understanding, contemplating God working I'm able to respond by joining with him at the heartbeat of life. And that's a powerful thing in many different situations. I know that I'll never be able to respond if I don't listen first.

The challenge comes in doing this so many times in different situations. Mission for Jesuits is transcendent. It is transcendent in the broadest possible sense. It falls outside of the structures of society and stretches it to its limits. It happens in unexpected places, unlooked for and unobserved. On street corners, in playgrounds, lecture theatres, rainforests, prisons and deserts. It happens with refugees, bankers, politicians, students, indigenous communities. It goes beyond the normal limits we put on our lives. Sometimes it vanishes as though falling between the cracks in the pavement, unrecognized. Somtimes it is celebrated, but our mission keeps going. Perhaps though its doing the same thing time after time in all those situations. My hope is that I can always keep doing that, listening and joining in with God at the heartbeat of life wherever I am. All of us have a mission. What's yours?

Jesuit Vocations: www.jesuitvocations.org.uk