April 23, 2023 - Pastor Message
04/30/2024THE YEAR OF MISSION
“A sower went out to sow to sow his seed. As he sowed, some seed fell on the path and was trampled, and the birds of the sky ate it up. Some seed fell on rocky ground, and when it grew, it withered for lack of moisture. Some seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew and choked it. And some seed fell on good soil, and when it grew, it produced fruit a hundredfold” (Luke 8:5-8).
“Then Jesus approached and said to them, ‘All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age’” (Matthew 28:17-20).
During our Year of Mission, we have reflected on how to serve our mission by: listening to God and others; discerning what God is telling us through our listening; and acting, formulating a plan, executing it, and evaluating our action for future planning. But if we are called to serve our mission in these ways, it is imperative that we understand our mission. We express our shared understanding of our mission here at St. Boniface through our parish mission, vision, and values statement. For the next several weeks, we will reflect in this column on that statement, beginning with our vision statement.
The first thing to notice about our vision statement, as well as our mission and values statements, is that it is a prayer. We exist only because of God, we are here to serve him, and we can accomplish nothing without him, so we express our mission, vision, and values as a prayer, lifting our minds and hearts to him that his will and work be done.
Our vision, found on the front cover of the bulletin, is the “new earth” (Revelation 21:1) we have been put by God on this earth and called by Jesus to help bring about. It is our whole reason for being here as a parish and our supreme goal. If we serve our mission faithfully, we firmly believe that God will bless our work by making our vision a reality.
And what is our vision? Using agricultural imagery so often used by Jesus and so familiar to the people of our parish who live in a rural area, it is a bountiful harvest of passionate disciples, united to Christ by the sacraments and sent by him to further serve his mission. Put another way, the vision we are striving to achieve is a growing communion of people united to Christ by faith - expressed through and strengthened by the sacraments we celebrate together - who, on fire with that faith, then go out to our community and bring others into the same sacramental communion of persons serving the same mission.
This vision will only be fully realized at the end of time when all are one in Christ (John 17:20-26). That may seem a bit vague or pie-in-the-sky, though, which is why we also include in our statement a concrete example of the vision already realized, though partially, in the ministry of our parish patron, St. Boniface. He is the great missionary who 1300 years ago faithfully served the mission God entrusted to him and by God’s grace converted the peoples of Germany, bringing them into communion with Christ through faith and the sacraments, and, by establishing many parishes, dioceses, and monasteries, created the structures needed for the people to continue the mission. His vision moved St. Boniface to action in service of the mission, and his action helped make the vision a reality. So can and will ours if we serve our mission faithfully today in our part of the world. St. Boniface - pray for us!
Fr. Marc Stockton
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