Being A Missionary
The conversation focused on the spiritual journey and the qualities of a missionary. The speaker emphasized the importance of being faithful, available, contagious, and teachable. He encouraged the men to assess their commitment to a life of mission and invited those interested in deeper formation to join a Tuesday night meeting starting from Fat Tuesday.
MC: Adam Hohn
Presenter: Joseph Gruber
Deacon: Rick Freedberg
Brought to you By: The Knights of Columbus
Jackson Michigan & Surrounding Area Catholic Parishes
Queen of the Miraculous Medal: https://queenschurch.com/
St John the Evangelist: https://saintjohnjackson.org/
St Mary Star of the Sea: https://stmaryjackson.com/
St Joseph Oratory: https://saintjohnjackson.org/new-here/st-joseph-the-worker-oratory/
Our Lady of Fatima: http://www.fatimaparish.net/
St Rita: http://www.stritacatholicparish.com/
St Catherine: https://stcatherinelaboureconcord.org/
Audio Trasnscription
participantOne:(1740-26380): In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Direct, O Lord, our actions by thy holy inspiration, and carry them on by thy gracious assistance, that every word and work of ours may begin in thee, and by thee be happily ended. Amen. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Gentlemen, pardon, excuse me.
participantOne:(28020-50420): A few weeks ago, we started talking about these three ways of the spiritual life. This progression from I'm a wretched sinner to I'm becoming a glorious saint. People recall this from a few weeks ago. Many of you were here. So the first stage, the first way is the purgative way. And we dwelt on that for two weeks in a row.
participantOne:(50640-85300): One, the fact that we don't even want to be in the purgative way, we don't even want to become holy, and so the challenge is to spend time with three kinds of persons, divine persons, canonized persons, and men holier than us. So I wanted to check in on that one. How many of you have made intentional time with at least one man holier than you? How'd that go? Anybody notice any change in their life because they did that? I'm going to call on Jonathan Larson. Yes.
participantOne:(85560-127080): Yes. Are you wanting more? Maybe, yeah. Continue to help focus on that towards heaven. So I'm with others that are within myself. Awesome. Anyone else who spent time with someone holier than them want to share? Brian? Mark Sessions, he restarted that rosary on Saturday at the medical center. And I didn't know where it was, and...
participantOne:(127839-164340): sent out a text, we went out there and he coordinated the whole thing, got everybody out of their rooms, even some of them who were quite cognizant. That's a different way of doing the rosary than I've done in the past. And what impact did that make on you? It showed me that even though we all may be there someday, you're not forgotten and there's not a purpose past holding something there that you can actually live for. Yeah, so spending time with someone holier, like Mark,
participantOne:(164680-196720): Shows a whole new dimension to reality. Yeah, your priorities change. That too, yeah. Gentlemen, we're not meant to linger in the purgative way. We're meant to be inspired and we're meant to be challenged to the point where we want to keep growing in our faith, where we want to leave sin behind and we want to grow in grace and virtue. That's what we're meant to do. Two weeks ago, we talked a little bit about discomfort.
participantOne:(197420-225840): The fact that if we continue in our sins, Satan lures us in with more comfort, but you never trust somebody whose only desire is to destroy you. Sort of like the Hans Gruber scenario with Ellis. Don't trust Hans Gruber to make your life more comfortable, because he only means to destroy you. Whereas God will make us uncomfortable, he will prick our consciences,
participantOne:(226140-257899): if we are not making progress in the spiritual life. But it's once we start making progress in the spiritual life that we start to experience the consolation of God. So discomfort. Sometimes we're getting discomfort because we are lazy and complacent and comfortable and God is producing some disquiet. Our conscience is pricking at us. And sometimes we're trying to grow and we feel uncomfortable because Satan hates us.
participantOne:(258120-279980): And now he's angry. So we spent two weeks more on the purgative way. And I want to sort of talk about the illuminative and the unitive way from a slightly different angle. Because here's the thing. People in the purgative way, we're not actually very effective missionaries. We're not effective evangelists.
participantOne:(280460-314960): We are not living out the lay apostolate very much. If we're constantly falling into sin, if we're not trying to grow ourselves, we are not modeling anything and we can't really be teaching anything with any kind of moral integrity. So on the other hand, if we are growing, if we are at least in the illuminative way, we are reasonably expected that we can be missionary, that we are capable of passing on the faith in a lively way. And gentlemen...
participantOne:(317160-347520): I don't think many of us know what it is to be a missionary, and so let's talk a little bit about that this morning. That's what we're going to talk about. Some things to look for for being missionary. Yes? I got one thing to say. Brandon Fry called me yesterday seven in the morning and he said he went to that friar to become a priest. According to what he said, they accepted him
participantOne:(348800-379680): And he puts me first ever since he met me. He says, my life changed, whatever. I said, whatever, Brandon. He wanted me to let everybody know that he got past his fire, so he might be leaving Jackson to go someplace else. We don't know yet, though. He gets his ruling. But he's the one that usually, like I told my brother and dad,
participantOne:(380280-407540): I'm the first one he had to tell, so. Amazing. Everybody heard that Brandon Frye. In the last two years since CORE has started, if you have not spent time with Brandon Frye, you have missed a chance of spending time with a man holier than you. So that's on you. That is on you. But no, he wanted me to let me know, you're the first one I'm calling because you're my brother. He's like, OK, whatever.
participantOne:(408760-446480): Praise God. Thank you. That's amazing. He's been discerning religious life since, basically since I met him some years ago. What a guy. That is amazing. I think I lost my place. But that's okay. That's totally fine. You don't need to do that, it's on the record for being a prioress. He's going on mission. Being on mission. Being on mission.
participantOne:(447060-469180): And I think we don't know what it is to be a missionary. We don't know what are some of the things to look for. And that makes sense. I have some experience in this. I spent 13 years in a missionary organization, which means that I had to apply and be interviewed and hired and trained.
participantOne:(469700-501740): and then participate in the training of other missionaries for years and years and years. So I have a little bit of experience in this. So, from that experience I'm going to speak. We should be able to ask the question of each of us, am I actually living a life on mission? There's a universal call to holiness, but corresponding with that, going right along with that, is a life of mission. The apostles were holy, and the apostles were on a mission.
participantOne:(502120-529380): And those two things were inseparable. If they had abandoned their mission, they would have abandoned their call to holiness. And so there are some basic things about becoming a missionary with the organization that I worked for. Three of them were that I had to agree to fundraise my salary. I had agreed to move anywhere they might send me.
participantOne:(529959-558860): And for my first year on staff, I had to be willing to fast from romantic relationships. I gave up dating when I was 22 years old for a whole year because I wanted to follow Jesus and share Jesus. Now, that's probably, those are things God might not be asking of you right now. He might not be asking you to move anywhere, but he might be. Abraham was called from the city of Ur when he was 70 years old.
participantOne:(560459-593120): you might be called from the city of Jackson to serve God somewhere else today. So don't think that that might not apply to you. If you say to God, God, I will do anything that you want except move, that's a weird limitation to put on God. So to ask that question, do I treat the stuff of my life loosely? Do I hold on to them with open hands? Or am I grasping on and saying, no, God, not this?
participantOne:(594439-626120): As far as fundraising goes, you're probably not called to fundraise your salary. Very few people are called to do that. But we are called to be receptive to help from other people. For the last two years, the common question on the sheets in the back, I've taken it off because people don't use the question, is there anything that you might need help with in the coming week? I've taken it off because nobody asks for help. And if we're not willing to ask for help, there's something broken.
participantOne:(626560-657900): There is something broken in us if we're not willing to ask for help. So to check, am I unwilling to ask for help? If I'm unwilling to ask for help, I might not actually be free to serve the way that God wants me to serve. So it's a worthwhile thing to check. So I'm going to be going through these things, gentlemen, and each one of them, just think, how does this apply to me? Does this apply to me? And could I be hired today as a Catholic missionary?
participantOne:(658140-677300): Is there enough evidence in my life right now for an organization to say, yes, you have been living a life of mission, and we want to support you and send you. That doesn't mean you have to join a missionary organization. You already are part of a missionary organization. It's the Catholic Church.
participantOne:(679579-708460): So fundraising, moving, fasting for romantic relationships. This idea that my body is not my own. My body is made to be a gift. And until I understand the meaning of my body as gift, I can't actually be a missionary. I think a lot of men after we get married, we think that this is no longer an issue. It is an issue, because my body does not belong to me. I actually made a gift of my body to my wife. That means that I actually have to take care of my body
participantOne:(709540-735940): for the sake of my wife and for the sake of my children. And if you're not married, it's the same question. Do I view my body, do I view my whole life as something to be given? And do I understand how to do that without having to be a taker as well? So those three things, how they might apply to you right now, not sure. Now I'm going to go through four things that in the organization I work for, FOCUS,
participantOne:(736319-771900): We often talked about, for ourselves and for the college students we worked with, four other categories that we were looking for, for fostering, for growth, for being able to trust a mission. So as I go through these, think, does this apply to me? And if so, is there evidence from my life that would actually prove this, that would actually convict me? So these are going to be an acronym, FACT.
participantOne:(772260-806660): Fact. F-A-C-T. Faithful, available, contagious, and teachable. So I'm going to talk about each one of these four things. Faithfulness. So faithfulness to Jesus, wanting to actually follow him versus anyone else. Being faithful to his teachings and to the church. Saying that I surrender to the teachings of the church. I see her as mother and teacher. That she actually has something to teach me. That's one level of faithfulness. It's kind of like...
participantOne:(806880-839220): In marriage, we talk about fidelity, faithfulness to our spouse. And there's a minimalist view of faithfulness, which is, I will not commit adultery. Right? Like that's... you have to at least mean, I want to be faithful to my spouse, meaning I don't want to commit adultery. But there's a maximalist view as well, of saying, not only do I not want to commit adultery, that's the negative, the positive is, I want to work for the benefit of my spouse.
participantOne:(840480-871260): that I'm going to be thinking of, how can I actually make my spouse's life better? How can I encourage my spouse? How can I encourage her to become the woman she's called to be? And faithfulness in this sense also has this maximalist view. Not only do I not want to abandon Jesus for some other false god, but do I want to work for the coming of his kingdom? Do I want to work for his glory? Do I want to work to make him known? And so you can ask the question,
participantOne:(871660-905800): Like, one, as far as the teachings have gone, have there been teachings of the Catholic Church that I disagreed with? And then what did I do to be reconciled with the Church? Who did I talk to? What resources did I use? How did I find resolution such that I could be a faithful son of the Church? So if you've never had any problem with any of the teachings of the Catholic Church, it is possible you don't actually know what the Church teaches.
participantOne:(906000-936940): Because there are difficult things that the church teaches, and if you've never struggled with any of them, God bless you. There are some hard teachings out there worth being reconciled to. So are you faithful? Have you struggled and persevered and come through in the end and said, yes, I have heard all that the church teaches? And then have you been faithful in this maximalist view as well? Have you been working for the coming of the kingdom of God?
participantOne:(940459-960740): Is there enough evidence in your life in the past week, the past month, the past year to convict you of being faithful? Where you could tell a story or two and say, yes, here are times when I've shown faithfulness. Available. This is the second one.
participantOne:(961560-990560): So, being available. I used to think, back when I was a college student, that available meant that I had a lot of free time, because that was basically every college student. Every college student had a lot of free time. But that's not what available means. Available means being available to God and to neighbor. So one way to phrase this is you are truly available if you are willing to make sacrifices
participantOne:(991340-1016600): in order for you to grow in your life of faith. That's one aspect. And if you're willing to make sacrifices for the growth of other people. So oftentimes we're like, yeah, I'll make sacrifices so that I can become the saint that I'm called to be. But are we willing to make sacrifices so other people can become the saints that they're called to be?
participantOne:(1020140-1049980): And then do you have evidence of that in your life? Can you think of times where you had a decision to make and you chose on behalf of your growth or the growth of a neighbor? Another way of approaching availability is, have you been available to God's promptings? Have you ever walked into a room and said, Holy Spirit, what is it you want me to do today, here and now?
participantOne:(1050420-1087520): Is there a way you want me to speak or act? Is there something you want me to say or do that I otherwise would not do? And then did you do it? Do you ever walk into your place of work? Do you ever walk into the church and say, Lord, is there someone you want me to talk to today? And who is it? And please, Lord, give me the grace to be with me so that I can actually do the thing you're calling me to do. That is availability. There have been times in my life
participantOne:(1088040-1117220): where I've said no to God. And I've said, yes, you want me to do this, but I don't want to do this, Lord. It feels awkward or uncomfortable, and I don't want to do it. I made myself less available to God. And then there have been other times where I'm like, you gave me an easy task. Well, thank you, Lord. I can do that. Right, like a few weeks ago, there was a couple behind us at Mass. And as I often do, I threw a baby at them.
participantOne:(1117879-1149020): It is so cool to just have a baby to throw at people. I recommend it. But then after Mass, we invited them over for lunch and we got to talk with them and get a sense of their story and we got their phone numbers and we want to follow up with them. And it was very clear, like, the Holy Spirit was making it really easy for us, which is good. I need easy missions. I'm not a great missionary.
participantOne:(1151400-1190500): So, have you made yourself available to the promptings of the Holy Spirit? Have you ever said, Lord, I know you want to do something here, and I want to do it with you? And do you make that a habit of being available? You can't make it a habit until you've done it once, and you can't make it a habit until you've done it twice. But you can make it a habit if you keep doing it. So faithfulness, availability. The next one is contagiousness, that the way that we live our life of faith is contagious.
participantOne:(1190860-1220380): contagious. People catch it from us. And this is, you can also use the analogy of the thermostat versus the thermometer. The thermometer will go up and down based on external circumstances. Alright, we walk into a room, everybody starts bad-mouthing their wives, and we just join in. We're a thermometer. It's frigid in there. It is not, that is not a healthy temperature, and we just match.
participantOne:(1221980-1253160): Or we go in and people are making crude jokes, and we laugh right along with them. Right, Link? Temperature, not fit for human habitation, and we just drop down to it. Or are we willing to be a thermostat and walk into a room and change the temperature to say, well, actually, let's talk about something different. Let's actually talk about something meaningful. Are we able to change the temperature in a room in a way that other people can catch on to?
participantOne:(1255180-1285220): Also with contagiousness, we want to pass on the living faith. What I've seen happen too many times is we think we're passing on the faith, and what we're doing is instead of the full-fledged faith, we're giving a weakened version of it. We are compromising faith as we're telling it to someone else. We're holding out on pieces of the faith because we're afraid of how they might react. Do you know what it's called?
participantOne:(1285560-1316160): When you give a weakened form of a virus to someone, you're inoculating them. You're not being contagious. You're actually making it less likely that they will catch on with the faith. And I think we do this way too often. We compromise our presentation of the gospel because we're afraid that they won't receive it. And so what they receive is a weakened version, and the weakened version is an inoculation.
participantOne:(1316980-1347160): Sometimes I think most of us have been inoculated, right? Like too many people have tried to give us not the living faith, but a dead faith, like a dead virus. And we're like, this doesn't do anything except make me resistant to the living faith. Or we're afraid of showing the faith at all. Like we're walking around in the spiritual equivalent of a hazmat suit.
participantOne:(1347639-1378280): well, I want to practice my faith, but I don't want anyone else to be made uncomfortable by it. I don't want anyone else to know about this Jesus guy. I want to be the very opposite of contagious. I want to be super unspreading. I want to be the opposite of a super spreader. So the question is, are we contagious? Have we taught someone the faith in such a way that they're living it and they want to share it as well?
participantOne:(1378639-1414540): This is a great sign. When was the last time you taught someone how to pray? When was the last time you sat and talked with someone about scripture? When was the last time you asked someone about their relationship with Jesus? If you can't think of that last time, it is possible that you are not yet contagious with the faith. That's okay, but it's not enough. So faithful, available, contagious, and then teachable. Teachable is contagious.
participantOne:(1416420-1440820): I would argue maybe the most important of all the four, are we teachable? This means that we're open to correction. I hate correction. I got an email from someone commenting on an email that I had sent out with, like, corrections to it. And I told my wife, would you just read this and filter it for me? Because I don't like correction.
participantOne:(1441040-1480840): I did that recently, embarrassingly recently. I don't like correction. Most men don't like correction. Most of us will try to put ourselves in a world where no one can correct us, which means that we are not teachable. If no one can correct us, we are no longer teachable, which means we're no longer learning either. So are you a lifelong learner or are you a recluse when it comes to learning? Also, it means that we're willing to change for the better.
participantOne:(1481680-1514000): Being willing to change for the better is a fundamental Christian attitude. Maybe the fundamental Christian attitude. If I'm not willing to change my life for the sake of something that's better, that's insanity. Think about it. You have two choices before you. One, the same thing you've always been doing, and two, something better. Idiots and insane people choose to stay the same. We are all idiots and insane people most of the time.
participantOne:(1514840-1543160): But the question is, am I teachable? Am I open to correction? Am I learning? Do I have men in my life who can hold me to account? Who can say, here is a standard. Maybe you didn't even know it was a standard. I'm going to tell you about the standard. I'm going to help you get to that standard. And do we have men in our lives where we can do that as well? Can we teach others? Can we hold other people to a standard?
participantOne:(1545700-1575060): Without Teachability, nothing else really works. I loved interviewing missionaries because it was the Teachability thing that I was most trying to find out. There were people interviewing to become a missionary who never had shared the gospel before. I was like, oh, well, can I teach you how to share the gospel real quick? And then they were like, well, this is an interview. This is a little awkward. We're wearing suits and we're...
participantOne:(1575300-1605520): trying to be all professional, but sure. I was able to share the gospel with them and hear them making a commitment to our Lord, making a commitment to Jesus Christ, and then realizing, seeing in their face, like, oh, this is what they wanna do now. Getting a job and working for the church, sure, that's what they wanted to do. Now they want to actually share the gospel. They were teachable. They were willing to receive something so much
participantOne:(1605960-1637080): that they were then able to go out. One of the guys I shared the gospel with in his interview, I heard back a year later, he was sent to Harvard as a missionary. And he spent that entire year telling the students of Harvard about Jesus Christ. When he came to his interview, he was like, well, evangelizing is teaching people about what the church teaches. It's like, that is true. It is that, but it is more than that.
participantOne:(1637600-1669700): It's not less than that, but it is more than that. If you're not talking about the person of Jesus Christ, you're not actually evangelizing." He's like, really? He's like, yes. And then it pulled out a Pope Benedict quote and it blew him away. But he spent years of his life proclaiming Jesus Christ at Harvard. He was teachable. That's what I was looking for. I was looking for a man who was teachable. I wasn't looking for a man who was perfect. I was looking for a teachable man.
participantOne:(1671620-1702560): Why is this all important? Gentlemen, Lent is approaching. We're a few weeks shy of one of the easiest wins of the Catholic liturgical calendar. This is the time when men are going to be more receptive to doing something different, to doing something harder. This is the time to make invitations to court, yes, to pray, to learn more about the faith, to dive deeper into the faith.
participantOne:(1703320-1738560): This is the time when men might actually be receptive. And so the question is, are you actually someone who could be hired as a missionary? Have you lived your life in such a way that someone else would say, yes, this is the kind of man I would want on my team. This is the kind of man who has been consistently, or at least from time to time, living out life on mission where he is right now. So we have the liturgical calendar that makes this pressing.
participantOne:(1740020-1771860): I want us to up our game here at CORE. I've said it literally years now. We have two goals. One, for all of us to become saints, and two, for Jackson to become Catholic. Super simple. Super easy. Super still out of reach, it feels like. But we need to up our game. There have been some shiftings in who's been able to volunteer for CORE.
participantOne:(1772480-1794800): And I would really love to invest more in some of the men, especially when we come to a small group discussion. I would love to invest in some men who want to rise to the occasion and say, maybe I'm not faithful, available, contagious, and teachable completely, but I'm teachable enough that I want to become more faithful and available and contagious and teachable. Okay.
participantOne:(1795280-1821060): I can't do it on my own, nor do I want to do it on my own. None of us should want to do the Christian life on our own. That's unhealthy. So we're looking for men who can actually be living the Christian life, so much so that the people around them are invited into the Christian life.
participantOne:(1823760-1858840): That's year-long. That is every day of the year. We're looking for that. In a particular way, we're looking for Lent to make invitations to say, for the six weeks of Lent, ask men to make a commitment. Ask men to check it out. Ask men to wake up early on a Saturday morning. And then I wanted to also announce at the end of this, this went a little bit long. My apologies. Some of you know that I run a marriage ministry, yes?
participantOne:(1859879-1879400): We were in Boston last weekend, that's why I wasn't here, and we were leading a retreat for couples for the Archdiocese. It was awesome. As part of the marriage ministry, I want to invest more in men here in Jackson. You might say, well, I thought CORE was that. It is. I want to do more, and I want to do more with less.
participantOne:(1879760-1911180): So I'm looking for men, particularly I have Tuesday nights free. I looked at the calendar with my wife and we're like, when can this actually work? I'm looking for men who want to show up, who want to grow. A couple of the men here have gone through what I put together some years ago, an apostolic formation plan, which is going intensely through what the Second Vatican Council teaches that every lay person should receive who wants to be on mission.
participantOne:(1911800-1933660): So if you have Tuesday nights that you can make free, and you want more intense formation, that will help with core, that will help with your marriage, that will help with, hopefully, the whole of your life. Come see me after this. Okay? So this is a blanket invitation. If you've gone through and you're like...
participantOne:(1934480-1965820): Yeah, I would fundraise my salary. Yeah, I would move anywhere. Yes, I want to learn how to view my body as gift. Yes, I want to be more and more faithful. Yes, I want to be available to the Holy Spirit. Yes, I want to pass on the faith in a catching sort of way. And yes, I want to learn because I am teachable. Then come see me after this. We're going to begin a rosary right now. And then for the last few minutes, we'll move back for discussion.
participantOne:(1966320-1990440): Sound good? Good. What time are you thinking of Tuesday? Tuesday, starting Fat Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday. So not this Tuesday, but the following Tuesday. 8 p.m. Because that's when most of my kids will be in bed, ideally. There's no promises there. All right. Let's begin a rosary. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Amen.
participantOne:(1990680-2013420): I believe in God the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into hell. On the third day he rose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. From there he shall come to judge the living and the dead.
participantOne:(2014840-2039300): Holy Catholic Church, forgive us our sins, and give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
participantOne:(2040880-2068020): For an increase in the virtue of faith, Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. For an increase in the virtue of hope, Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.
participantOne:(2068340-2094080): for increase in the virtue of love and Mary full of grace the Lord is with me blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus Holy Mary Mother of God pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit as it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be for all of us amen Mother Mary be with us be with us throughout the day
participantOne:(2094400-2100220): And help us to finish this rosary. Amen. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
