One of the many activities that characterizes the fall season is football.
For a number of years, I have served as chaplain at the Academy of Holy Angels in Richfield. Among the duties of the school chaplain that predates me, is serving as chaplain of the school’s football team.
As chaplain, we have a weekly Mass with players and coaches, typically on game day. Then, I lead the pregame prayer, and after home games, we gather in the school courtyard for a prayer to St. Joseph as the school’s patron, honoring the Sisters of St. Joseph who founded the school. Aside from leading the players and coaches in prayer, I’m also with them on the sidelines and able to engage in a variety of conversations that at times even include prayer requests.
Like any sport, a football team has a mission of focus on the game at hand. Besides the game, however, there are lessons of faith and life to be learned in football or any team sport. Regularly we talk about the values of discipline, hard work and teamwork as core tenets of not only football, but life and faithfulness to our call to follow Jesus Christ.
In addition to football, the month of October is characterized by World Mission Sunday. When we think of World Mission Sunday, we rightly remember missionaries serving in developing countries and bringing the Gospel message to people often lacking the necessities of life.
While we remember and pray for all those serving in faraway places, Pope Francis reminds us that we are all called to be missionary disciples. As an expression of our baptism when we become children of God, we are sent into the world like the first Apostles and disciples to share the message of God’s love with all we meet. If there is any doubt, recall Jesus’ words, “Go out therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” We are sent into the world, to share something of God’s love in the ordinary ways of daily living that bring others to an encounter with Jesus Christ. It’s a mission that continues among us and is revealed in many ways this month, as it calls us to see and recall.
Some weeks ago, I received a call from a former neighbor. Tom and Barb lived behind me, and I watched their three girls grow to be fine, faith-filled adults. Tom called to share the news that his middle daughter was involved in a car accident. After picking up her three children from school like any other day, Jenni passed out and went off the road. Thankfully no one was hurt. In the moment of need, Tom and Barb stepped in to help Jenni and her husband take care of the kids as medical professionals worked to figure out why Jenni had blacked out and develop a treatment path moving forward. While a scary sequence of events, the action of Tom and Barb to do what needed to be done to help Jenni and her family — as well as the actions of the first responders at the scene and many people who continue to pray for Jenni and her family — is another example of living as missionary disciples, by sharing the love of God with others not only in ordinary moments but in those extraordinary ones that can unexpectedly burst into our lives.
Another activity that characterizes these days of fall are parish festivals. People love these opportunities to gather and support one another and the mission of an individual parish.
As parochial administrator, one of my parishes is now preparing for its Annual Sausage Supper on Nov. 24 from noon to 6 p.m. at St. Mary in New Trier. New Trier is a city with a population of 85 people, and as a parish of 156 households, St. Mary’s Annual Sausage Supper feeds 800 or more people with a meal grounded in the area’s German heritage.
In addition to the number of people who come, what’s amazing to watch is the teamwork of the parish itself as it puts together this meal with hours of volunteer work from farm to table, which includes an active 103-year-old volunteer who helps make sauerkraut and is the keeper of the sausage spices. It’s another example of World Mission Sunday and how people live as missionary disciples by feeding the hungry of our world and sharing an experience of Jesus Christ in the sometimes-chaotic world around us.
October is characterized by World Mission Sunday. It invites all of us to not only look to the missionaries who serve far away, but to remember our call to be missionary disciples who bring a message of God’s love to our own time and place, by both word and deed, as we put faith into action and share the light of Christ for all around us to see and know.
