perspective

This was part of the morning prayer for our formation gathering this past weekend. I shared it with my fellow parish Peace & Justice Commission members this evening, and now I share it with you. From Bishop Oscar Romero, martyred in El Savlador March 24, 1980:

"It helps, now and then, to step back and take the long view. The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision. We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work. Nothing we do is complete, which is another way of saying that the kingdom always lies beyond us.

No statement says all that should be said. No prayer fully expresses our faith. No confession brings perfection. No pastoral visit brings wholeness. No program accomplishes the church’s mission. No set of goals and objectives includes everything.

This is what we are about: we plant seeds that one day will grow; we water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise. We lay foundations that will need further development. We provide yeast that produces effects far beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something, and to do it very well. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest.

We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker. We are workers, not master builder, ministers, not messiahs. We are prophets of a future that is not our own."

-Bishop Oscar Romero
(Quoted from Echoing God’s Word, by James B Dunning, North American Forum on the Catechumenate, p 380)