“What are we to do?”

“What are we to do, my brothers?” That question comes from the very first day of the Church’s ministry to the world on Pentecost. Hearing Peter’s proclamation of God’s saving work in the death and resurrection of Jesus, those listening to the Gospel message understand that this Good News demands a response: “What are we to do?”The question expresses the enduring pattern of the Church’s life to this day: to hear the Gospel and ponder what we are to do as individuals and as a Church to live the new life of salvation and grace. In changing places, cultures, historical upheavals, and daily routines, we are called to ask that same question of the Holy Spirit: what are we to do? As times, resources, needs, and opportunities change, we continue to seek God’s will with the help of the Holy Spirit.

Listening to the Spirit’s guidance is necessary not only to understand what are to be our goals, but also to know how to proceed practically. “What are we to do?” means not only “Where are we going?” but also “How do we get there?”

Planning is increasingly part of this strategic conversation in the Church. It is also found in business, education, health care, and other segments of common endeavor. But it means something profoundly more in the Christian sense, for we are not simply a human institution with a pragmatic even if noble purpose. We are the living Body of Christ.

We become members of that Body first of all through Baptism.

That in fact was the answer Peter gave to the question on Pentecost: “What are we to do?” His response: “Repent and be baptized.”

Our common mission begins then with the sacrament of Baptism.

All the baptized by that very fact become sharers in the three-fold mission of Jesus as Priest, Prophet, and King. The priestly mission involves sanctification, bringing God’s holiness in the world through prayer, worship, sacrament, and sacrifice. The prophetic mission proclaims the Word of God in evangelization, catechesis, and missionary outreach. The kingly mission is lived in service, both within and beyond the structures of the Church. Jesus models this kind of kingship – “I came not to be served but to serve”; “the greatest among you will last of all and servant of all” – and in the washing of his disciples’ feet teaches us to imitate him:

“As I have done, so you must do.”

What are you good at? What talents and strengths are entrusted to you? Every member of the Church has particular gifts and a specific role in the mission assigned to us by Jesus.

The scope and contours of each one’s role are refined by their particular vocation and state of life, their natural talents, , and their specific area of responsibility in the whole. As St. Paul says, the Body is made up of many different members and functions, but all are necessary for the health and flourishing of the whole.

A proper understanding of mission depends on how we view the scope of the mission of the Church itself. Too narrow an idea of this mission identifies it with the visible structures and organization of the Church. Co-responsibility can then be narrowed to serving on parish councils and groups, liturgical and pastoral ministries, and activities at the parish and diocese.

While these activities will always be important, they do not reach far enough for the mission given to us: “Go into the whole world and make disciples.” The churches we attend are our foundation and community of celebration, support, and purpose, but they are not an end in themselves. Our task is not to maintain a parish but to transform the world in the Spirit of the Gospel.

Thank you for all the ways you do this in your families, jobs, volunteer involvements, gestures of kindness to those who may not otherwise encounter Jesus so intentionally.

As we ponder the future of the Church in the Diocese of Saint Cloud, we are rightly asking anew the question spoken on Pentecost:

“What are we to do?” The question is not confined to how parishes will be arranged and staffed, when Mass is scheduled, or how many programs are established. Our planning is aimed at a goal as broad as the world and its need for the Gospel. All of us are needed, and each one contributes something that matters.