Changing the world!

Every Sunday we hear the words emanate from our priest’s mouth “The Mass has ended, go in peace to love and to serve the Lord.”

Now you may be asking because of the title, "how can I bring about any kind of change to the world? Isn't that for more important people? People with power and influence in the world?”

Yes and no! The responsibility is theirs because they have the power and influence to change the world for the good. Yet it is only the converted heart, the heart that has been transformed by grace and filled with Him who is goodness itself, that is able to truly change the world for the good.

You see, you and I, even without “power and influence,” make significant impacts in the world by what we choose and how we live. The words our priests speak every Sunday is key to understanding how we can make that impact for the good.

"Go in Peace"!

To go is to move from one place to another or to change location. So change is involved in "going". And how do we go? "In peace"! In Him who is Peace itself. Because Christ is the Prince of Peace we are filled with peace which is Christ Himself.

Remember the words of Sacred Scripture: "Peace I leave with you; My Peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you....”Jn. 14:27. So, we are going in Christ who is our peace; who has changed us and is changing us.

Where are we going in Christ who is transforming us? “To love and serve the Lord!” St. Thomas Aquinas says that “love is the giving of ourselves for the good of another.” So based on the definition of love, to love is to render service to another. So loving and serving are synonymous with one another.

So what does all of this look like, my dear brothers in Christ? I will tell you.

When you and I leave Mass nourished by the Bread of Life (Jn. 6:35) and filled up with the goodness and transforming power of God, we become vessels of Living Water welling up to eternal life (Jn. 14:14). The world begins to be changed for the good when, as living vessels, we are poured out by living out our vocation in life. Giving ourselves for the good of our particular vocation as lay faithful.

This is the mystery of faith: "Christ in us the hope of glory" (Col. 1:26). We Change the world by becoming true children of the Father in the only-begotten. It is in Jesus by which we participate in sanctifying the world. Our words and actions become salt of the earth and light (Mat. 5:13-16) so that our brothers and sisters who sit in darkness may see a great light and no longer be people stumbling in the dark (Lk. 1:79).

This is love in action.

When we as branches stay united to the true vine (Jn. 15) our fruit can become a sharing in the work of the Holy Spirit, giving life and freedom to the dead and the captive.

My dearest brothers in Christ: You and I and the whole world are utterly and completely loved by God. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son” (Jn. 3:15) Christ must be our new life so that we may give life, because He is the Life for the world offered up.

Stay faithful to prayer and the Sacraments, and God will give you the graces to change the world. “Loving and serving the Lord” should be in every aspect of your daily life. From the good morning to your wife, family, and or co-workers and throughout the day until we retire for the night with a prayer of thanksgiving, thanking our Lord for the opportunity to serve Him one more day.

Now I don’t know about you, but this sounds like a good life to me. The next time you hear the words “The Mass has ended go in peace to love and serve the Lord,” remember that you have been enabled and emboldened to change the world because the Life of the world Christ Himself is in you working to make all things new.

Blessings and peace In the heart of Jesus and Mary!

Written by Wayne Schroeder: Wayne is a philosophy major and member of Catholic Men’s Fellowship of Our Lady of Grace in Covina California.