Love and Mission

According to Fr. John Bartunek, the essence of our mission in the world is to love as God loves— we are created in his image and likeness, and his nature is love (see 1 John 4:8), so our fulfillment flows from entering fully and consciously into the stream of divine love. 

Loving means, essentially, affirming the goodness of someone else’s existence and doing good to that person in such a way that his or her existence can truly flourish. Love involves desiring, giving, and working to help others be all they can be, all God calls them to be. And since every human being is “made to live in communion with God, in whom he finds happiness” (CCC, 45), the best way to love someone is to help that person discover, establish, and deepen that communion with God. That is our most basic and indispensable mission in the world; that is how we best fulfill the second great commandment and find the meaning we most yearn for. 

Pope Benedict XVI put it well: To make Christ known is the most precious gift that you can give to others…. When you work to help others and proclaim the gospel to them, then your own lives, so often fragmented because of your many activities, will find their unity in the Lord. You will also build up your own selves, and you will grow and mature in humanity