“It is not good for man to be alone” because loneliness spoils the image of God in us, and God is Family. Like God, we, too, are made for love and self-giving. Like God, we are called to give and to receive with an open heart. That’s how community is born, a nation is born. By common accord, we establish a constitution, a “magna carta” of rights and duties, to ensure order and peace and to guarantee that we can flourish as a people.

The Church, too, is a “holy nation”, the people of God, but at the heart of the Church is not a magna carta made by human beings, but the law and will of God. The Church is not born from human effort. No, She is born of God calling us together by His own free choice, giving us His will, the Gospel, and making us His people. “We are His people, the sheep of His flock.” God calls us together as Church through our families or through His spiritual intervention in the hearts of non-believers. He uses Creation, His Word and His Sacraments to call us ever more deeply into union with Himself, and through Him into union with each other. This unifying power is the Holy Spirit, poured out on us at Pentecost as the result of Christ’s saving passion, death and resurrection. We are an Easter people, a Pentecost people. We are God’s People. We are not limited to one place or time or race or country. We are God’s Holy Catholic Church, that is, we are called together as His people from across the world and the centuries, and we are endowed with the fullness of the means of salvation by the gift of God.

But the Church, too, is to be open. Open to go out in mission and open to receive whomever and whatever the Spirit draws to Her. She must not close herself in as if She were self-sufficient. Rather, She is driven by divine love to keep reaching out, to give, to self-sacrifice. This is Her mission because this was Christ’s mission. She is the sacrament of His salvation, the sign and instrument of the unity of the human race. She sheds the Light of Christ upon human history and all human collaboration to build a just and peaceful world. On the foundation of the Apostles and their successors, the Church continues in our time the commission Jesus gave to the Twelve in the Gospel: To proclaim that the Kingdom of God is near at hand, to heal, to cleanse, to cast out evil of whatever kind. And what is true for the Church universal, is true for the Church at diocesan and at parish level. In our own place, we are together a small portion of the people of God. God has put us here together in this place, at this time, to be the Light of Christ, a sign and instrument of unity in our locality. And it is God alone who can give us the grace, the strength and the wisdom to do and be all that. A parish is always on mission.

When we come to Mass, it’s important, then, that we don’t have at the front of our minds that we come or go as private individuals. Mass isn’t primarily about what I get out of it or even about fulfilling my religious duty. That’s too much about me. The Mass is where I renew and feed my awareness that I belong to the People of God; and that together we are called by God to worship Him as His people, as we are caught up into Christ’s prayer and sacrifice to the Father. The Mass calls us out of ourselves and into the “we” of God’s people. Our gestures, words and actions at Mass are done together, as one body. The Mass confirms and deepens in us that basic truth about our lives: that we are made to love, to self-sacrifice for others and for God Himself. We owe it as a duty of love to God and to one another to be here, in the flesh, unless we are genuinely impeded. Indeed, we should sorely miss being here if we are impeded, for here we both give and receive through our bodily presence the support and strength of our Catholic identity which derives from the sacramental Body of Christ.

As the Mass unfolds, and as we listen to the word of God and the various prayers, it is good to ask the Spirit to inspire in everyone present whatever will help us as a believing community to fulfil better our mission among ourselves and to the wider local community. Once the actual action of the Mass is over, the mission is really just beginning. Why? Because we have Christ’s Eucharistic presence renewed within us, we have His words ringing in our ears and alight in our hearts, we have His Spirit prompting us to give and sacrifice of ourselves in love for one another and for the wider community. And, at this point, forgive me if I just gently remind everyone that, unless you are taking Communion to the sick or have a truly serious reason to leave early, we all ought to remain in the church until the final blessing and the priest’s words sending us out on mission together as a body. It is Christ who calls us to begin Mass together and it is He who sends us out together.

And what might our local mission look like? It might be a mission of prayer for any good intention for our parish or town. That can be done individually or, better, together by forming your own prayer groups. There are other vast areas of pastoral concern which need both prayer and action: outreach to the young; outreach to the lapsed; outreach to the marginalized, the poor, the lonely. When you perceive a need and sense the Spirit’s promptings, go with that, listen to it, discern it, act on it. If the Spirit leads, He will show the way, the how. Jesus says to proclaim to everyone the nearness of the Kingdom, so this is a call to take up the challenging mission of evangelization, to pray, research and reflect how that can be done realistically in the here and now. Jesus sends them to heal, so here is a vast harvest of opportunity to reach out to the numerous forms of brokenness that exist in our very own locality, recognizing the good work already being done by the Legion of Mary and the SSVDP, but also reaching out in new ways inspired by the Spirit. Jesus sends them to cleanse, so here is a mission to invite people to repentance, or to help them clear their hearts, minds and memories of what pollutes them. And, finally, Jesus sends them to cast out evil, so here is a challenge to overcome evil with good by witnessing with joy to a life lived in the Gospel and speaking up and out publicly to call things out when they are harmful.

Individualism, the philosophy of self-centredness, is rampant today and it gnaws away at the roots of society and, sadly, also of the Church. But the Church at every level must call out individualism and the club or clique mentality, especially in her own members. So, I encourage and exhort you, St. Mary’s (Our Lady’s) parish community, by using the numerous graces and charisms present here, to grow and flourish even further as the Body of Christ in this place, to see, as Jesus said, that here in our own locality the harvest is rich, but the labourers are few. Let’s believe in Christ and in ourselves that there is yet more that we can do for the Kingdom, together and in the Spirit, as God’s people in this place.