April 20, 2023 - Pastor Message
04/30/2024THE YEAR OF MISSION
“Christ Jesus, you call us together as a parish to sow and nurture the seeds of God’s saving love in the hearts and minds of all our neighbors and beyond by living your gospel” (St. Boniface Parish Mission Statement).
The above is our parish mission statement, found on the front cover of our bulletin every week. Our vision is the ultimate goal for which we strive; our mission is what we are called to do to make that vision a reality. The vision is the end zone; the mission is our game plan to get the ball into the end zone.
So what is our game plan here at St. Boniface? First, like our vision statement, our mission statement is phrased as a prayer, because it is Christ’s mission that we serve and only by his action will we accomplish it, as St. Paul says, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ living in me; insofar as I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who has loved me and given himself up for me” (Galatian 2:20). And so we ask Christ to live in and through us and to bless our efforts in the service of his mission.
Second, our mission statement recognizes that Christ calls us to act together in the service of our mission. Each and every one of us who make up the parish of St. Boniface has been called here by Christ. Each and every one of us is here because Christ chose us and put us here, at this time, in this place, with these people, for a reason. Each and every one of us has the same vision and same mission, and only by working together, with Christ and one another, sharing our own unique gifts for the common good, will we accomplish our mission.
And to what action are we called to commit our gifts together as a parish? Returning to the agricultural imagery so often employed by Christ and so familiar to our rural community, Christ calls us to both sow and nurture the seeds of God’s saving love. We’ll focus on nurturing the seeds next week. This week, let’s focus on sowing. To sow means to scatter and plant, like the parable of the sower, heedless of where the seeds fall, not judging the soil as worthy or unworthy of our efforts (Luke 8:5-8). It is our job simply to put it out there, trusting that Christ will guide it where it is meant to go.
The seeds we sow are God’s love and grace, poured out from the pierced side of Christ on the cross and enlivened by his gift of the Holy Spirit, all of which comes to us through the proclamation of the Word, the celebration of the sacraments, and the life of the parish community. We first sow these seeds in the hearts and minds of our neighbors in our immediate area - our families, friends, and fellow parishioners, our coworkers, classmates, and the people we meet in local activities. We then keep widening the circle by supporting the efforts of our diocese, our country, and the Church around the world, sowing and nurturing the seeds of God’s love in the hearts and minds of all our neighbors, both near and far.
We do this by living the gospel in our daily lives, both within and outside our church walls. This means proclaiming the good news of Jesus’s saving life, death, and resurrection in our loving, Christ-like actions and words, inviting our neighbors into our parish community to share our communion with Christ, ultimately through the sacraments, and, finally, by calling them to carry out the mission themselves. Our mission statement reminds us that the gospel of Jesus is not simply a collection of writings or teachings, as important as these are, but a loving, life-giving relationship with the risen Jesus himself, who lives in us and reaches out through us to love and save others, which is our mission.
Fr. Marc Stockton
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