Do you remember the moment you were sure of what you loved the most in your life? What it was you were willing to live for and die for? What it was that gave your life meaning? Or, paraphrasing Rev. Elizabeth Braddon, what it is that makes your soul sing?
The Gospel narrative for today’s feast dramatically portrays this moment in Christ’s journey. In theological language, this is the beatific vision when with great clarity Christ knew who he is and why he is—his identity and mission.
End of Christmas season
Mark Twain writes, “The two most important days in your life are the day you were born and the day you find out why.”
This seems to wrap up for us the Christmas season. From Advent to Christmas we prepared for that first important day in the life of Christ, the day he was born. Today we see the core of the second most important day in his life, the day he found out why: “This is my Beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. Listen to him.”
This is Christ’s identity and mission. He is the Beloved Son and his mission is to do the Father’s will and thus please the Father.
In my study, where I spend most of my waking hours at home, is what I call the “gallery of the Paschal Mystery” with the paintings of Christ in the Agony in the Garden, his face as he was hanging on the Cross and Christ being raised up by the Father. It serves as my daily reminder to know and to remember my own identity and mission.
Today’s feast sets us off to a good start for the year. As it ends the Christmas season and starts ordinary time, we are reminded to live in the day to day aware of who we are and why we are, our identity and mission.
I invite and encourage you to read the daily Gospel for Mass in the coming weeks. These first few weeks in ordinary time give us a very homespun type of picture of Christ. To give you an idea, we begin with Christ making the fundamental proclamation of his mission, “Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!” Then it is followed by his exorcising of an unclean spirit, setting the basic theme of his mission of the battle between good and evil.
After this comes his cure of Peter’s mother-in-law, which attracts crowds seeking his healing and whom he heals. Early the next morning he withdraws into solitude to pray. When his disciples seek, find and tell him people are looking for him, he declares “to other towns I must go” and proclaim God’s message. This is the triptych picture of Christ: the man with and for others, the man of prayer, and the man on a mission.
Beginning with the end
Stephen Covey in his “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” stresses that one important habit is to “begin with the end in mind.” Christ shows this in his baptism. He begins his ministry by emphatically dramatizing what the end is for him, to be the Beloved Son in whom the Father is well pleased.
This is the end of his story and mission. His loving obedience all the way to the Cross and the Father’s response in love in the Resurrection is Christ’s end, his mission. The baptism story vividly prefigures this end, the Paschal Mystery, the Cross and Resurrection—the most eloquent expression of Christ as the Beloved Son and how well pleased the Father is.
As in all things, clear beginnings and clear endings leave one last question, what happens in between?
The life of Christ as we cited in the Gospel readings in the coming weeks tells us of the in-between, but there is one key moment, the Agony in the Garden. This is the moment when Christ had to make the choice to enter the core of his relationship with his Father, “Father, if it is your will, take this cup away from me … not my will, but your will be done.”
At this moment he lives out the full meaning of his identity and mission. He surrenders totally as the Beloved Son, “accepting even death, death on the Cross, and because of this God highly exalted him.”
Today’s feast invites us to go back to that moment, when with great clarity, we knew what it is that makes our soul sing; our identity and mission. It takes us back to that second most important day of our life when we knew why we were born.
Looking back, moving forward
But it invites us not just to go back, but to retrace the journey we have taken so far and bring it to a re-integration where we will choose to enter the core of our relationship with God, with Christ. The key word is choose—to make a choice to enter the core of our relationship with Christ which is only the Cross and the Resurrection.
To make choices is the grace that we pray for in the coming year; to make choices to more faithfully live out our identity and mission, and thus enter more and more the core of our relationship with Christ in the day to day—choosing to embrace our cross and thus choosing to follow him more nearly all the way to the Cross and Resurrection.
The easier part is knowing who we are and why we are, knowing our identity and mission; knowing what makes our soul sing. The harder part is making the choices in the day to day to live out our mission as a following of Christ ever more nearly because this following more nearly gets to the point when our prayer is: “Not my will, but your will be done.”
