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From the Director - Missionaries need big minds and hearts

03.08.2009

We missionaries are normally adventurous people, full of plans and initiative. Humility is not our outstanding virtue. We are not "shrinking violets". We have too much to do. But often our energy and enterprise are our Achilles' heel. Our strength can be our weakness.

Slowly we learn that to be good missionaries we need to be less active and more humble. If we are not careful, we run the risk of preaching a Gospel and building a Kingdom that reflects us more than Christ and the Reign of God.

We Christians do not have to do or to claim all the good done in the world. Instead we need to be spiritual and discerning enough to recognise good wherever we meet it.

The Church exists, not for its own sake, but for the sake of God's Reign which is breaking into our world in many ways and many places, often far beyond the boundaries of the institutional Church. Our task is to not only to proclaim, but also to seek, uncover, encourage, celebrate and build on the Spirit's activity in the world. God is especially active wherever people strive for justice, peace, freedom and reconciliation between peoples, religions and with the environment.

However, we have to be magnanimous to recognise and to celebrate rather than ignore and resent the good done by others, especially those we think we know. We need to be humble.

Many years ago I was challenged by CS Lewis' definition of humility. It ran something like this. To be humble is not to put yourself down but to do something good, to be proud of it and happy with yourself, but to be no more proud or happy than you would be if someone else had done it.

Ironically it is not the big things in life that catch us out but small things like envy. If we want to be able to play our part in God's plan for the cosmos then we need to be humble. Proud of what we do but not preoccupied with ourselves or our contribution.

We have to be humble enough to have the big minds we need to recognise good done by others, and the big hearts to celebrate it and build on it graciously.

Fr Noel Connolly
director@columban.org.au

Holy Father's Missionary Intention for February:"That in the mission territories where the struggle against disease is most urgent, Christian communities may witness to the presence of Christ to those who suffer."

From the Director - Missionaries need big minds and hearts

Holy Father's Missionary Intention for February:

"That in the mission territories where the struggle against disease is most urgent, Christian communities may witness to the presence of Christ to those who suffer."