Seek the personal mission the Father planned for you

This is the fourth of five blogs intended to help you to DISCOVER and ACTUALISE the will of the Father for you. Press this link if you wish to start reading from the first blog.

Apart from the existential situation, another aspect that can stimulate the person to acknowledge God’s will in a particular situation is the awareness of one’s personal mission.

The personal mission

• is not to be confused with one’s state of life or vocation. 
• It’s not one’s profession or job. 
• It’s not, at least in most cases,  a spectacular enterprise nor a painful Calvary.

This mission might be synthesized in the ‘for’ from which the combination ‘called for’ comes from, and is discovered in time by an individual.

These particular missions, together, have the aim of letting Christ live in the world in different dimensions.

Saint Paul explains:

“Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.  And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers; then deeds of power, then gifts of healing, forms of assistance, forms of leadership, various kinds of tongues. Are all apostles? Are all prophets? …” (1 Corinthians 12:27-30).

Thus, God appoints personal missions for the service of the whole church.  No one mission is better than the others, but each one is important for the rest. This is because:

“For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ” (1 Corinthians 12:12).

In seeking God’s will, one can discover and strengthen this personal mission.

It could be discovered, for example, by noticing that certain aspects of Christ’s performance make more sense for oneself than others. Or, one might feel a superior attraction or a particular relationship to some aspects of Christ’s behaviour rather than to others.

For example, de Foucauld comments, “I did not feel that I was called to imitate his public life in preaching; thus, I wanted to imitate the hidden life of the humble and poor manual labourer of Nazareth” (Charles de Foucauld, Letter to H. De Castries, 14 August 1901).

More than this, when one discovers his personal mission, one can continue to strengthen it by imitating from the words and deeds of Christ particular aspects related to that particular personal mission.

This is very clear in what our exemplar de Foucauld wrote at the end of a retreat he made on 17 May 1906.

During the six festive days, between Holy Thursday and the Tuesday after Easter, I made a retreat, of which I here annotate a summary and my resolutions. It is a call to a kind of life that constitutes my vocation. Imitation of Jesus in Nazareth.  Adoration of the Holy Eucharist: silent sanctification of an unfaithful people, bringing Jesus to them. His adoration and imitation of his hidden life.  A resolution to continuously imitate Jesus and his life in Nazareth. A resolution which leads to penitence, to the mortified life of Jesus in Nazareth.  A resolution which leads to the poverty of Jesus in Nazareth.  A resolution which leads to humility and to the humble manual work of Jesus in Nazareth.  A resolution to the retired life, to Jesus’ silence in Nazareth.  A resolution which leads to leaving everything behind, like Jesus in Nazareth.  A resolution which leads to a life of spiritual communion, adoration, prayer, of Jesus’ vigils at Nazareth. A resolution which leads to the zeal for the souls, to gather around the Blessed Sacrament, in these unfaithful countries.  A resolution which leads to the zeal of souls, to charity, to goodness, to do good works, for all humanity as Jesus in Nazareth.  A resolution which leads to the zeal of souls, through the meekness, humility, the pardon of insults, the meek acceptance of the maltreatments of Jesus in Nazareth.  A resolution for zeal for souls, through the good example as Jesus in Nazareth.  A resolution for zeal for souls, through prayer, penitence, personal sanctification as Jesus at Nazareth.  A resolution which leads to Jesus’ living in me, so that it is not I who live, but the heart of Jesus that lives in me, as he lived in Nazareth.

Charles Eugène de Foucauld, Diary, 17 may 1906, Feast of Saint Paschal Baylon

Some of the principal means that in practice can help to discover one’s personal mission are:

• The reading of Scriptures with an open heart ready to receive any inspiration from God. This includes the above-mentioned feeling of association with certain aspects of Christ’s performance.
• Observing what triggered us during our life from when we were young or the heroes we had as adolescents. This is a more psychological observation.
• Asking ourselves questions such as,  “Father, what do you expect from me?” “Father, what is my mission?” “Father, what is my assignment to collaborate with your eternal project?”

Other means

Other means that can help discover one’s personal mission is the awareness of the different levels that constitute one’s life. This can include:

a) The awareness of one’s environment, that is, the place where one lives, works and takes recreation. 

b) The awareness of one’s behaviours and actions, that is, what one does during the day from the morning to the evening and the activities one is involved in.  Since one’s mission is in the Church and the world, this observation could be widened to the behaviours of others around him or her, including that of one’s family, colleagues, the local Church, and society in general. 

c) The awareness of one’s capabilities, that is, what one can do—the unique gifts and talents one developed during the years. 

d) The awareness of one’s values, that is, what one considered important from when one was young. 

e) The recognition of what one feels is his/her personal mission here on earth.

f) Finally, one can relate directly and enter into a dialogue with the Father based on the inspirations one gathers during the previous reflection.