What is mission work?

Saint Anthony
Originally uploaded by hnwate04

I've been thinking about this question a lot lately. My school has mission trips over our academic breaks, and I have never been on one yet. But this year my goal is to go on one. One trip is to the Phillipines and the rest are within the U.S. I probably can't afford to go overseas, but I often wonder at the complexity of what that would entail...

I'm doing a presentation on mission work for my ministry class, and throughout my research I have been coming up with a lot of questions that I would ask a missionary if I met one. I believe these are questions that we should all ask ourselves as well. If we think about a time (or imagine a situation) where we have come into contact with a culture that is very different from our own, how do we act, how do we react, and how do we evangelize?

Evangelization is a very delicate thing, because everyone responds differently to a person's words of faith. It is important to know that when I am speaking with a non-Christian, I have to respect where they are coming from. This means that if they have a different cultural tradition from my own, I can't assume that they will give it all up. I have to come to understand their culture, because aspects of it are most likely very good. So this brought me to ask the question "what parts of a cultural tradition are sacred and should remain and which parts could change?" I don't know the answer to this question because it is probably different in every case.

This question brought me to another question: does sharing my faith mean that I also bring my way of life to this new culture? How could I say that my way of life is the best way to live? Sure, I may have luxuries that they don't have (some countries just don't have toilets, and that is normal), but should we force them to adapt the luxuries that we are used to? Maybe all the luxuries that I have are not necessary. In a class discussion about this topic, we decided that standard healthcare was something that everyone deserves. We also decided that we could not force a country to get toilets.

I will also ask the question of how to relate to a culture that is so different to my own. This is important to think about. I may not speak the same language or look the same. So what is it that can connect us on the same level? Let's go back to basics and say that we all connect on the level of humanity. We all share human experience, emotions, spirituality, music, ...love. Love is such a powerful thing that it speaks to us even if we cannot speak to eachother. And so my friends I come to the bottom line of what mission work needs. It needs love. If you love a people you wish to evangelize to, you will strive to know their needs, both spiritual and physical, and you will strive to know exactly what you can do/say for them that will help them the most and bring them closer to God. So this is where I have found myself on the topic of mission work... there is much work to be done, but first and foremost, the heart of charity is absolutely necessary to understand the full picture of what we are doing when we are evangelizing. We are not counting numbers of people we may have converted, we are not keeping tallies. Evangelize my friends, but do it with complete love of God and of those you are helping, because what we do to the least, we do to Jesus.

Rome, the great adventure!

Rome
Originally uploaded by hnwate04

Have you ever thought about going to another country? Maybe you have. If not, I highly recomend it. But not just for the sake of a great adventure, but for the sake of a greater view and understanding of the world that God created. The variety in peoples, landscapes and plants, architecture and art... they are phenomenal. This photo is St. Peter's Square, Vatican City. A fantastic place full of every kind of person from sisters in habit and priests in cassocks, to tourists from Asia, to Romans, traveling Europeans, and many more.

Traveling to a foreign country can give you a great opportunity to learn important values in life that may not be as magnified when you are in your home. One of the most important values that a traveling Christian can learn is the ability to trust God, no matter what! Trust God if you got on the wrong train, if you can't find your hostel, if it rains and you lost your raincoat... just to name a few possible instances. Seriously, these situations show us that we are not in control and that God is. If we allow ourselves to learn from them and know that God had something in mind the entire time, then we have a value well learned when we come back home.

Whether or not you can afford to go to another country, try to look at the world knowing that there is a lot more to the world than one person can know. May God bless you abundantly in humility and love for others!

Pathways

Cinque Terre
Originally uploaded by hnwate04

God leads us each in a unique direction. The trick is how we find that direction. For some of us, this includes spiritual direction from a priest or mentor, hours of prayer and meditation, and above all, absolute trust in God. Piece of cake right? Yeah right! Sometimes this seems so hard. For instance, how can you trust that you are at the top of a staircase that you have never been on if you have your eyes closed? It would be easy to stumble and fall, unless you had someone to tell you where the next step was for each step. This is what God does for us. He doesn't want us to fall down the stairs, he wants us to successfully climb the stairs to be with him. Look at this photograph. If you look closely you can see a small path that goes along the shoreline. But you cannot see the end of the shoreline, and you cannot see even a horizon. But it's there even though it is escaping our sight in this photo. The farther along this path you walk, the more you will see ahead of you. It is also like walking in thick fog. At times you can only see three feet in front of you, but if you move forward, you can see more and more that didn't seem to be there before. These small examples of trust can show us how to trust God with our lives. He is the Almighty, we can feel safe trusting Him.

My life has shown me many doors that I only need to walk through in order to follow God's will. And every once and a while, I find a door that I never expected to find. For instance, I went to college to be a music major, but now I am graduating with a degree in Youth Ministry. And even my degree may not be used in the way that I expect. I may become a teacher, a youth minister, a mother, or I may end up in a foreign country. The thing is, I must open myself to the gifts of the Holy Spirit and to the grace that God is pouring into my heart. This way, I can begin to see my life plan more clearly and I can trust God even more. We should all strive to do this, to open our hearts to the overflowing of graces that God is showering us with every moment.

Medjugorje

Medjugorje
Originally uploaded by hnwate04

How do we know that God has a plan for us? We pray! I heard this great analogy yesterday about our relationship with God. When we go to adoration to pray directly to Jesus in the sacrament of the Eucharist, it's like going to talk with your spouse. Communication is vital in a marriage, and it is just as vital in our relationship with God. This is our most important relationship. So we must take special care to make sure that we are listening to what God has to say. Often times I find myself asking God a question and then quickly covering my ears so that I won't hear an answer I don't like. But that is the opposite of what should be done. Trusting God's plan is something that doesn't always seem natural. Listening doesn't always seem natural. This is because we are human and imperfect. We think of ourselves firstly a lot of times when we should think of God first. So when we ask God a question, we NEED to listen to his answer! If he answers in a way that doesn't seem easy or correct in our lives, we need to trust him because he knows our lives better than we do. He knows every hair on our heads. I know I don't know that about myself, so how could I know the plan for my life?

Small bit about this photo, this is a friend of mine who I traveled with in Europe earlier this year. This is a picture from Medjugorje, which is in Bosnia-Herzegovenia. Medjugorje is a place where Mary appears to some visionaries. It has not been approved by the Church yet because the visions are still happening. Mary has been appearing here for the last 25+ years. It is an amazing place. I'll talk more about it later when the topic of pilgimages comes up.

Morning Sun at Gilmore

Morning Sun at Gilmore
Originally uploaded by hnwate04

I woke up one morning a couple of years ago and took this photo. I'm not much of a morning person so it was a small miracle that I was able to be awake at all. Every time I look at this photo I see more detail in God's beautiful creation. What was he trying to tell me that morning? It was definitely a message of hope. That wasn't the easiest year for me. But God stood by me for every moment, and when I wasn't awake for something important, he woke me up. Praise Him!

Life is so precious and so fragile. It is so easy to feel invincible, especially when we are young. I used to think that I could stay up all night, all the time and feel fine the next day. I've since learned that this is not true at all. Instead I feel like I want to die rather than be awake and be at work or school. It's not a good feeling.

Just a few days ago, I found out how much life is fragile. It was quite the wake up call from God. A friend of mine was hit by a train and is now living off of life support at a hospital. The shock that hit me was profound. Death seemed so far away until that moment when I read the email from my school informing me and every other student of what had happened. Immediately I was thrown into prayer. I felt helpless, useless, except for my prayer. I knew that I could help my friend by praying for her. Please pray for her to regain conciousness soon. Just as God woke me up, let him wake her up to life in Him! I pray that I get to see her again soon.

Be reminded that our lives on this earth are not forever. This world is not our permanent home. Everything on this earth is preparation for the next. Everything. We have to become good stewards of the earth and of everyone around us. And finally, may we come to live eternally in perfect bliss with our Lord. Every moment will be a praise to Him. Let us start praising him and thanking him now for the precious gift of life that we all have. And let us respect the lives of eachother; born and unborn, young and old.

Mary, Mother of God

Rome
Originally uploaded by hnwate04

Immaculately concieved.
Virgin mother.
Mother of God.
Assumed into heaven.

Immaculate heart of Mary, pray for us!

Mercy

Rome
Originally uploaded by hnwate04

I don't want to say much about this photo. I just want to let it speak for itself and say "blessed are they."

God the entertainer?

Rome
Originally uploaded by hnwate04

Sometimes we get caught up in the excitement of a great moment. Sometimes we don't. This picture reminds me of how you have to look so much deeper than emotion. Let me explain. In this picture, it's hard not to be distracted by the large amount of black space that surrounds the entrance into St. Peter's Square in Rome. If we are completely distracted by the black abyss, we will miss the true subject of the picture. This is also true of our faith and life in the Church. If we are only moved by emotions (the distracting black abyss) then we can miss the true deep and vast vaults of grace that our God blesses us with.

I love talking about Church. One thing that I am particularly passionate about talking about right now is why going to Mass can be boring. It's true, the music may not always be rockstar, and the homily may not always make sense. But the big question we need to ask is this "IS GOD JUST HERE TO ENTERTAIN US?" The answer is obviously "NO". But often times it is easy to think that because we are not emotionally satisfied, that we are not satisfied at all. When we go to Mass, we recieve JESUS, and Jesus is the "source and summit" of our faith. That's a big deal. So to say that Mass is boring to us may be true, but it is never fruitless! God knows that our faith is not perfect, and He knows that it is impossible for us to fully comprehend Him. And yet he still offers us the body and blood of His only son, Jesus Christ.

So is it wrong to be bored? I don't think so. I believe it's wrong to think that boredom equals meaninglessness. So look into this picture one more time. Cover up the black surrounding the middle subject, focus on the true subject (in the case of our faith, that true subject is Jesus Christ). If we are focused on him, who cares if WE are bored. WE are created to love and serve GOD, so let's do it!
-AMEN!

Rome

Rome
Originally uploaded by hnwate04

I just want to say that God did a great job when he created man in his own image. There are so many interesting people in the world. I took this photo right after walking out of where JPII's tomb is underneath St. Peter's basilica in Rome.

Steubenville St. Louis

Last weekend I traveled to Missouri with some awesome teenagers and Youth Ministers. It was my first Steubenville Conference and I got to go as a chaperone which was pretty amazing if you ask me. If you are ever doubting your call, sometimes it takes a mountain top experience like this was to be encouraged and affirmed. That is what this weekend did for me. For anyone who has never been to a Steubenville conference, it is for High School students. It is filled with singing praise and worship, Eucharistic adoration, speakers, and Mass! That hardly explains it, but at least it might give you an idea. I have never seen so many teenagers so excited to be Catholic in my life. Seeing the Body of Christ together in one room is breathtaking, and to think that there are so many more people than that in the world who are united through the Church is so beautiful. I encourage anyone to go as a teen, or as a chaperone.

I am learning how to be more comfortable with my call to Youth Ministry, and this weekend was a great aid in that. Please pray that I continue to doubt less and less and trust more and more in God's plan for my life and the lives of those that are around me.

The teens that traveled with us were such a blessing. I could see a transformation in how they believed in their Catholic faith and how they worshiped our Lord at adoration and Mass and all the time. It's not often that we get to see the fruits of what has been planted in people's lives, but this weekend was very fruitful thanks to the conference and the influences in each of our lives, but most of all because of our Lord Jesus Christ. What a great renewal, a great time to come back to deeper relationship with him.

I want to thank the youth ministers who were with us for keeping the focus on Christ the entire time. They were truly acting as the instruments of God's plan.

I want to leave you with these words from Saint Edith Stein (otherwise known as St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross):
"Whatever did not fit in with my plan did lie within the plan of God. I have an ever deeper and firmer belief that nothing is merely an accident when seen in the light of God, that my whole life down to the smallest details has been marked out for me in the plan of Divine Providence and has a completely coherent meaning in God's all-seeing eyes. And so I am beginning to rejoice in the light of glory wherein this meaning will be unveiled to me. "
-Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross

Amen.

God Listens, I promise.

Have you ever thought about the power of prayer? I definitely think about it a lot. It's almost funny and fictional to think that someone can hear my silent prayers (and all of my silent thoughts) and that this person wants to give me what I ask for. But we are so blessed because this is NOT fiction! God is real, and He hears everything. Never forget it, I know I have forgotten it at times. But I have been fortunate enough to be reminded that God listens to everything.

There is a thing called coincidence. But coincidence doesn't happen. How could it? When there are so many obstacles to make things not work out? So how do things work out? When you ask for something from God, and you get it... it's not a coincidence. God is the reason. But sometimes, many times, He doesn't answer our prayers in the way that we expect...

New blog, this is new for me...

Hi, my name is Hannah... I must say that I have never kept an online blog like this before, so it's going to be fun to see how I do. Let me tell you about the name "Blessed Are the Poor in Spirit." This of course is the first of eight beatitudes in the gospel of St. Matthew. I recently had a conversation about what "poor in spirit" really means. I had never given much thought to these words... honestly, I just assumed that 'poor in spirit' meant 'weak in faith.' But this in fact is NOT what it means. I have come to understand that 'poor in spirit' is actually very similar to the 8th beatitude in Matthew, "Blessed are they that suffer persecution for justice' sake, for their's is the kingdom of heaven. Mt. 5:10. To be poor in spirit is not a weakness in faith, rather it is a suffering for one's faith. Jesus tells us that we are blest because we withstand the suffering that comes with standing strong in our faith. Amen to that! I don't know about you, but it's nice to hear him say that we will get some kind of reward for any suffering in this life.

That being said... this blog is to be used for inspiration, to provoke thought, and to address issues that come up in my life that are relevent to this blog. Basically, what you read is what this blog will be.