Catholic Journal

On Mission- Reflections from a Missionary

Where does one begin when doing missionary work? I am writing as someone who was assigned to a mission three years ago and I am still in this assignment. I am new to being on mission. I did not know that my journey would bring me to this point in my vocational journey. I humbly want to share insights I have gleaned being out on mission.

Mission work first means being sent out. The word has its roots in the Latin word “missio,” to go or be sent. You only are missionary when you go out from what is familiar to you and arrive at what is new. I don’t want to be pedantic. You can “witness” to the Gospel and the Catholic faith in any way in your home environment. I do want to say that only missionary work reaches to those on the outside, on the fringes. Some leave their homes to go to a place close by. Some rare and valiant souls, like St. Theresa of Calcutta, who left her home land of Albania to be a missionary sister in India, go far away to spread the Gospel. Then, there comes the “who” of mission work. All missionary activity needs recipients. For my confreres and I it is doing retreat work for local Catholics in southern Wisconsin. For Mother Theresa, her mission eventually evolved into service for the most poor people in India’s slums and then around the World.

The people in the background

As I began this new venture in retreat ministry I wanted to reach those I could. What this meant was that we had to form a strong foundation with the people we worked with. Over my first year here I found out how important it is to reach the people behind the scenes. My confreres and I emphasized working in a down to Earth way. Our superior would take the time to help clean dishes after retreats and do the prep work for the next meal. I took time to work with our housekeepers and learn from them. This approach made it possible to share our ministry with everyone on the team. The truism is still true. People in the background are more important than those in front.

Resonating in holy worship

Another aspect of our work, often ignored in evangelization, is the importance of the place of worship. Too often liturgical disputes can take away from proper attention given to right worship. When we arrived in our priory we discovered that the Church was not laid out in a way that was conducive to full and vibrant worship at Mass. This was not to the fault of the members who were there before us. It was just that the seating in the Church and its Sanctuary space had fallen into disarray over time since the monastic community had disbanded. We took the time to straighten the rows of chairs (there were no pews). We moved the Sanctuary space back more from the center of the Church to be in front of the choir stalls. Now it has its own sacred area around it that cannot be walked through casually. And ornate wooden kneelers were made to place in the front to add beauty and decoration to the Sanctuary space. Now the Church is fuller for worship. We received many compliments from different people praising the changes we made.

Ministry to the Underprivileged and Forgotten

On our campus we are blessed to have an academy designed for adults with special needs. A group of pioneers in this field approached the Abbey five years ago to ask to lease a space on our property and begin a school for special needs adults. The idea worked out well since we already had a large complex previously used for a youth reformatory. This academy, called Matthias Academy, started with only 20 core members and several staff. It has grown, by God’s grace, to include 120 core members and over 50 staff, and a second location. How blessed it is to work in charity! While we do not oversee this program directly, we have gained many insights by sharing our space with them. Never forget those who are usually forgotten. This is a most important rule of evangelization.

Cast out your nets, and don’t throw back the fish you get

I feel the greatest thing you can learn in mission work is to not set too high or impossible expectations. I am an idealist and this affects how I view my role in missionary work. I came into this assignment with hopes of evangelizing to thousands and thousands of people. While I didn’t get to evangelize to millions, the millionth person you meet, the person you never expect, can be the person who truly and fully appreciates your message. You, in turn, will find yourself filled with the lessons you learnt from them. Since our retreat center is not a parish we get people who are not tied to any specific parish or faith community. This gives us many people who are atypical of your typical Catholic. We minister to a flock of black sheep to say the least. While this creates moments of stress dealing with different individualistic personalities, it also gives us glimpses of grace. To see and to find so many different people coming together in their lives of faith is a privilege.

So we have had to be formless in the work we do, and this in turn can be demanding. Despite that it is worth it to find God’s grace shining so brightly in our lives.

Freely You Received, Freely Give

One afternoon I took a little camino through the woods on our property. There is an old trail through the woods that is not maintained. It is hard to find and makes for a fun hiking adventure. I love to walk outdoors regularly and find different kinds of trees and animals and wildlife. As I was walking one day by our lake I found an old army surplus box hidden behind a fallen pine. I opened it and found a note saying that it was a Geocache. It is a hobby treasure that you leave in the woods and fill with keepsakes and souvenirs. You will then mark its coordinates with an AP you can get on your smart phone. The rule is that you can take something from it as long as you exchange it with something of equal value. As I kept coming back to this Geocache I could not help to think that this is a good parable for the Gospel mission. We come to the Gospel with our life and experiences. We take from the mission what we can and give what we have already. In this way the Gospel message is sublime. It always has something to give to us, and we can take something away from it always. Let us never cease in our own mission work in the Catholic Church.

Amen.

Br Matthew Marie, OSB

BROTHER MATTHEW MARIE, OSB, professed his religious vows on November 11, 2016. A native of Washington, Iowa, he studied at Conception Seminary College in Conception, Missouri, and graduated in 2014. With experience in retreat and hospitality ministry, he is presently an observing monk assigned at St. Benedict's Abbey in Benet Lake, Wisconsin. There, he assists with Retreats and their Oblate program. Most importantly, however, he takes part in that community's daily life of prayer.