Guest column by Blake Brouillette
Managing director, Christ in the City
Member of St. Teresa Parish in Lincoln
You are a missionary. Yeah, you, reading this. Whether you’re a stay-at-home mom, an elderly man in a nursing home, or a corporate executive, YOU are a missionary right where you are. Skeptical? Let’s dive into it.
A missionary is someone who is sent to spread the Gospel and offer something to the poor in the name of Christ. So, who are the poor… and what do the poor need?
Reflecting on her visits to the United States, Mother Teresa said, “The greatest disease in the West today is not TB or leprosy; it is being unwanted, unloved, and uncared for. We can cure physical diseases with medicine, but the only cure for loneliness, despair, and hopelessness is love. Many in the world are dying for a piece of bread, but many more are dying for a little love.” She and her Sisters were picking up people dying of hunger and disease in the gutters of Calcutta and caring for them with great love. Yet, she said the poverty in the United States is “just as severe as our poorest of the poor.” In our country and in the Lincoln Diocese, we are not seeing the poor regularly die of hunger or succumb to diseases like those in the materially poor world. Yet we are seeing people suffer, and suffer deeply. Are we poor, too?
The most common poverty in our day-to-day life isn’t what you would initially think. Material poverty is a serious issue in the United States and something that must be addressed. However, through the lens of “spiritual poverty,” the poor can take on a new face, and our missionary activity to the poor can be re-ignited in a new way. At Christ in the City, we serve the chronically homeless out on the streets and visit those in nursing homes and prisons. Our experience is that the root of all poverty, material and spiritual, is a rupture of relationships.
St. John Paul II’s encyclical Centesimus Annuus describes the four relationships that can be ruptured - with God, with oneself, with others, and with the Earth. This rupture and resulting loneliness and isolation can be felt within all of us at some point in our lives. This loneliness is no different from the loneliness of the homeless and poor. The true problem that must be addressed in the spiritually poor, the majority of the poor in the United States, is loneliness and a need for relationship. It is easiest to see loneliness in the homeless, the prisoners, the nursing home residents, or the struggling teen or college student. Their internal struggle has a tendency to manifest externally, and hiding isn’t always possible. Loneliness is far harder to see in our colleagues, our friends, our families, and even ourselves. The poor are all around us. The poor are not a problem to be fixed, but a person to be encountered.
Loneliness has serious effects on the human person. In May of 2021, the American Perspectives Survey reported that 12% of Americans say they have no close friends at all, and 46% of Americans reported they don’t have a best friend. What makes this a serious problem? Well, a 2010 study by Holt-Lunstad found: “...the effect of lacking social connections on the average person’s lifespan is equal to the impact of smoking 15 cigarettes a day. It’s greater than the risk associated with obesity, excess alcohol consumption, and a lack of exercise” (Holt-Lunstad, J., Smith, T.B., & Layton, J.B. (2010).
And now we return to the question of whether you are a missionary or not. Do you know anyone who is, simply put, lonely?
With this new lens of who the poor are, it becomes easier to see that the poor are all around us. Serving the poor is written into your deepest being. Imagine you are coming out of Mass and you see a toddler running toward a busy street. Whether or not you know this child, I am sure you would run toward the child in danger. It is written in our nature to take care of each other. Especially the most vulnerable.
The Church affirms your missionary identity in various ways. Most of us are familiar with the Gospels and Matthew 24: 34-40, but there are also supporting documents which echo what our Lord tells us in Scripture. In the Catechism, where it discusses what “catholic” means, it’s subtitled, “Mission - A Requirement of the Church’s Catholicity” (P 850). Later, under “Love for the Poor,” it says, “The Church’s love for the poor… is a part of her constant tradition.
This love is inspired by the Gospel of the Beatitudes, of the poverty of Jesus, and of His concern for the poor. Love for the poor is even one of the motives for the duty of working so as to be able to give to those in need. It extends not only to material poverty but also to the many forms of cultural and religious poverty” (P 234-236).
The Lord’s missionary mandate is ultimately grounded in the eternal love of the Holy Trinity: “The church on earth is by her nature missionary, since, according to the plan of the Father, she has as her origin the mission of the Son and the Holy Spirit” (P 850). The ultimate purpose of our mission is none other than to make men share in the communion between the Father and the Son in the Spirit of Love. All mission and missionary activity comes back to relationship – to Love.
How, then, do I live out my missionary identity? I truly believe everyone wants to help those they see in need – they just don’t know how. If a rupture of relationship is the root cause of poverty, relationship must also be the answer. The model Christ in the City proposes is Mary and John at the foot of the Cross. This was Jesus’ darkest hour and there was nothing they could do to take away His pain or make the situation better. There were no right words, no actions, or any physical way for His mother and friend to help Him. Yet Mary and John gave Jesus the greatest gift in that moment: their full presence and attention. They were there to be with someone they loved, no matter His circumstances.
Looking down from the Cross, Jesus must have been consoled by their loving presence. This is what we are called to do with the homeless and the poor. Sometimes there is nothing we can say or do to ease their pain or improve their situation. But by simply being present, we are giving the poor the greatest gift: friendship.
Encounter involves a total presence, or, as the missionaries have coined, “wasting time” with people. The easiest thing to want to do is to fix things. It’s what we do as Americans. And darn it, we are sure good at it! Yet, the poor are not a problem to be fixed, but a person to be encountered. There is a time and place for fixing things and improving social problems, but it starts with relationships. It starts with encounter. Just as Jesus does with us.
The missionary identity written in each one of us and the model of Mary and John at the foot of the Cross take the pressure off. We are not the Savior; we don’t have to say or do the perfect thing. We get to trust in the Lord and simply encounter those who are in poverty, whether spiritually or materially. I encourage you to reflect on who in your life is experiencing this poverty – this rupture of one of the four relationships in our lives. Let us all go forward, living our missionary identity. On the streets, with our friends and family, and in our workplaces. Together, let’s create a Culture of Encounter.
