From Mission Impossible to Mission Unexpected, with the Help of the Saints

Fr. Rich Miserendino on mission with CBC to Kenya

Like most, I’ve spent the better part of the last year COVID-hobbled, watching as the usual scheduled highlights of the year went slipping past me, unfulfilled.  The normalcy of family get-togethers, vacations, holidays, conferences, even entire liturgical seasons like Easter was swept away in the tide of “social distance”.  This, of course, included mission trips.

In particular, I remember marking the weeks when both the Rome and Banica mission trips drifted by, reminders on my calendar that I “should” be somewhere else.  Or should I?  God’s providence wastes nothing and never abandons his children.  If we were stuck at home, at least we weren’t home alone.  God was with us.  His grace was at work there, too.  And since God’s grace is living and effective and always works for our good, there must be a lesson in all this for us as well.  What is that lesson?

Seeking an answer, my mind and heart have been drawn repeatedly in prayer to three holy women as an answer:  Saint Therese of Lisieux, Saint Francis Xavier Cabrini, and Saint Katherine Drexel.  They’re mighty Saints, towering witnesses of God’s grace, and their lives show us what God is working out in our hearts right now.

Let’s start with Saint Therese:  Perhaps you’ve heard that she’s the Patron Saint of missionaries.  But perhaps you’ve never considered the irony of that fact.  Saint Therese was a cloistered Carmelite nun.  She lived virtually all her life in one small region of France, and most of her adult life within the walls of a monastery. How could she possibly be the patron of missionaries, people who quite literally seem to live their faith in the exact opposite way?

The answer is simple:  Therese was a missionary in silence and prayer.  Her prayers and letters and spiritual advice supported missionaries in her time and beyond, her focus on Christ in silence rained down grace which empowered others to proclaim Christ aloud.  The Church made Therese a patron of missionaries to remind us of an essential truth:  As missionaries we may travel the globe and encounter multitudes, but the beating heart of missionary life begins and lives in the encounter with Christ in prayer.  It’s not travel that makes the missionary heart, but Jesus, present locally in the tabernacle.

Next we consider Saint Katherine Drexel and Saint Francis Xavier Cabrini.  Both dedicated their lives to missionary work for the poorest of the poor in radical ways.  Yet both found their way to their life’s mission, to the grace God intended them, by a surprising encounter, a momentary disappointment, and a complete 180 redirection from what they expected.  Saint Katherine started as a wealthy and beautiful heiress first interested in financing mission work in the US amongst the black and indigenous populations.  Mother Cabrini was an Italian missionary nun (from the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus) with a heart to bring the Gospel to China.  Yet for both women, providence was powerfully at work to reshape those plans:  In 1887, both St. Katherine and Mother Cabrini paid fateful visits to Pope Leo XIII to gain his approval for their proposed work.  Both were initially shocked and disappointed.  Saint Katherine was challenged by the Pope:  Why just give money, why not become a missionary herself?  Mother Cabrini was likewise shocked: The Pope rejected her plans for China and instead charged her to travel to America to minister to the poor Italian immigrants working there.  Yet both women embraced these challenges in humility and grace, and grace blossomed.

(Fun fact: Saint Therese also encountered Leo XIII that year and went through the same cycle of disappointment, redirection, and blossoming.)

Saint Katherine went on to become a missionary sister and dedicated her entire fortune (millions of dollars, billions today) to founding a Religious Order (The Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament) to serve the black and indigenous populations personally, in schools and orphanages and hospitals across the United States.  In fact, she was even coached in founding the order by Mother Cabrini herself!  Mother Cabrini, for her part, went on to found 67 missionary institutions throughout the country as well.  Hospitals still bear her name today.  Two Saints disappointed and redirected, two Saints embracing the challenge in faith, and two Saints flowering as witnesses to Christ, blooming where they were planted.

The lessons from Saint Katherine and Mother Cabrini are clear:  Being a missionary means accepting setbacks but also realizing that God’s grace and true mission is often held within.  Both Saints were surprised and sent into personal encounters with Christ in the poor, and specifically the poor nearest to them.  Mother Cabrini was sent to the Italians, not the Chinese. Drexel was sent to the minister face to face with those she sought to serve.  Both found their mission in our own country, on our own shores.  The situation is the same for us:  Mission isn’t necessarily abroad, but often something that calls us to personal encounter with Christ in our neighbors, serving those right in our midst.

The lessons from those three Saints speak powerfully for us as well.  Covid has been a challenge and a disappointment.  But God is present in the challenge:  Through Saint Therese he reminds us that we should enlarge our missionary hearts in the silence of prayer.  Saint Katherine and Mother Cabrini remind us that our work hasn’t been thwarted, but redirected to care for those closest to us.  All three remind us that even amidst apparent stillness and setbacks, God is still powerfully present and his missionary work in us continues as alive as ever.

By Fr. Rich Miserendo, CBC Missionary Chaplain to Dominican Republic and Kenya