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Personal Mission Statement
Upon completion of my annual retreat last year, my retreat master challenged me to write a personal mission statement. He noted how even secular organizations, including businesses, are doing it to sharpen their sense of objective and means of obtaining the objectives. He cited a restaurant chain that exhibits its mission statement at the entrance to each of its outlets. A mission statement is at once a statement of identity and purpose, a road map for the journey – in my case, for my life pilgrimage. How should it read? What should it contain? We at The Shrine of St. Joseph, in preparation for the Millennium, wrote a mission statement. It would be better to say it was not simply written, but was the result of long prayer, much searching, and probing looks at ourselves in consultations within and from experts without. Now that it has been written, we are in the process of living it out and measuring ourselves and our effort against the statement. In formulating my personal statement, I have begun by asking myself some simple but profound questions: Who am I? Whence have I come? What do I want to do with the rest of my life? Certainly I am a sinner, that is for sure! But I acknowledge with great and deep gratitude that I have been baptized, confirmed and consecrated to God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Most basically I am a disciple of Jesus, a true believer, one who strives anew each day to walk in His footsteps, listening to His Word proclaimed, and moved by His grace to imitate Him in my daily inner aspirations and affections. In my relationships with others I do want “…to love as He loves and to serve as He serves”. I want to approach Him in my daily prayer as a friend and confidant, as my Brother who wants to bring me to His Father as my Father in the Spirit. I know that such encounters bring great joy, and when I am in crisis or suffering some sliver of the Cross, I experience consolation. I want to be true to my goal, so I want to guard against detours. I want to make decisions ordered to my goal. My blueprint needs imagination, not the same old stuff. As someone has said: “I don’t want to be on autopilot”. So I am resolved to continue to work on my personal mission statement with these initial suppositions as the beginning notions and ideas that will enable me to draw up the blueprint for my life and for the unfolding of each day of my life. I invite you who read this to consider also the possibility of writing a personal mission statement – and if you have done so, take time to check it out against the reality of your present life experience. In the meantime may you know His love in abundance!
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