Link to download: Mission

We prepare a quiet and restful space to pray, beginning with a song or praying Psalm 100:

Psalm 100

Shout to God with joy, all the earth!
Serve God with gladness!
Enter into God’s presence with a joyful song!
Know that the Lord is God!
God made us, and we belong to God;
We are God’s people, and the sheep of God’s pasture.

Shout to God with joy, all the earth!
Serve God with gladness!
Enter into God’s presence with a joyful song!
Know that the Lord is God!
God made us, and we belong to God;
We are God’s people, and the sheep of God’s pasture.

Shout to God with joy, all the earth
Serve God with gladness!
Enter into God’s presence with a joyful song!
Know that the Lord is God!
God made us, and we belong to God;
We are God’s people, and the sheep of God’s pasture.

God is good; God’s steadfast love endures forever!
(For five minutes, repeat this mantra in contemplative silence)

Reading: 1 John:1-3

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us.

We proclaim to you what we have also seen and heard.

The process of the MISSION in which you are involved, caught in a moment of happy encounter with the Good News of existing and that joy and blessedness are possible, there is no doubt and it is necessary to give testimony of it, because the Lord has said it and you have proved it. Each day his Incarnation evidences his process:

• Mary welcomed him into her womb, listening in the announcement and in the service, as “the servant of the Lord”.
• She proclaimed it before her cousin, doing justice before the work of God,
• She gave birth to him inserted in poverty…
• Angels confirmed that Good News in action, around the pastors, their first beneficiaries
• AND THE WORD BECAME FLESH AND DWELT AMONG US,

As simple as that, the Word that was from the beginning, God of God, in the heat of the Ruah, was placed in the hands of the first missionary: Mary, who would disappear in history, diluting herself among the people and making history with him.

“Who is my Mother and who are my brothers? – Those who know (taste) the will of my Father and put it to work … Here is the MISSION of incarnating the Word, in today’s world!

The scene changes each day, and the essential touch of God is recorded as a founding part of your being, continuing in that contact with His Word that makes you a disciple and apostle. The experience of 150 years of gestating and giving birth to the Word, is current in this moment, in which we feel a call and then a sending, as it happened in our recent Chapter.

               What call or human cry is the announcement of the messenger of God today?

The ground you step on now, must be that Sacred Land to which you have been SENT, and with the force of the Spirit, you recognize the tear created by an unjust system every day, in the flesh and life of the poorest and most vulnerable. Pope Francis pushes us towards the peripheries, he invites us to unsettle, and we have understood it as a commitment to make the incarnation of the Word evident; as creative, audacious, mystical and prophetic women, before the realities of death.

               With what voice, with what actions do you imply your life?

We are facing death processes. We contemplate realities that surpass us, there are still people waiting with their hands outstretched. Our ages weigh us down, but they enlighten us. The relationships that enrich us daily are both challenge and gift. And in the Mission to embody the mercy of God in the ways of the Word, there is the longed-for experience that announces to the poor a blessedness that reaches us.

What pains? What joys do they proclaim?

We conclude by singing the MAGNIFICAT.

By S. Tere Fernandez.