Romans 12:9-16
Luke 1:39-56
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Graduates:
Your mission should you chose to
accept it is to say “Yes” to God and live a life for Christ. It’s spelled out
clearly in today’s Word of God. This is a Mission Impossible for many in
today’s world.
St. Paul shared this mission with the early
Christian community in Rome in today’s first reading. Mary shares the glory of
this mission in her beautiful Magnificat as she meets with her cousin
Elizabeth.
This is a special mission. One, sadly, not
followed by many of our young people in today’s culture.
Today’s culture encourages us to follow our own
will, not the will of God. Today’s
culture encourages us to be rich and famous, and associate with the mighty and
powerful.
The visitation is a beautiful example of how
we are to live our own lives by saying “Yes” to God’s will. God has a plan for
each of our lives. To find out what it
is we must first conform our lives to Christ.
Through Mary’s example we see the glorious
beauty of saying “Yes” to God, the importance of living humbly, and the power
of associating with the poor and needy.
It saddens me greatly that so many Christians
get this wrong due to the infection of today’s way of life. It’s not the Way of
Jesus.
And that’s your mission should you choose to
accept it.
To follow Christ in all you say and do, to do
the will of God in your own life. To inoculate yourself against the infection
of our cultural pull to go your own way and leave God behind. Or to be rich or famous.
My message to you graduates today is to use
Mary and Jesus as your life’s models.
Serve others. Not yourselves. Help others.
Not yourselves. Love others. Not only yourselves.
Jesus modeled this way of life for us.
Mary was the very model of Christian living.
She’s the perfect disciple. She’s humble in accepting the will of God. She
becomes the Mother of God, by sacrificing everything to bring to the world our
savior.
She even sacrificed her own reputation in her
hometown of Nazareth when she arrived home from her visitation to cousin
Elizabeth and her husband Zechariah with a growing belly that betrayed her
pregnancy to the community.
Now here’s an unmarried 14 year old girl,
carrying the very Son of God in her womb. But, to her neighbors in Nazareth,
she was just a young woman suspected of sinning by having relations outside of
marriage. But this is a woman who never sinned.
I’m sure there were people in her community
who wanted her stoned to death. That was the punishment in her day for such offenses.
But Mary knew she was on a Mission Possible for God. The angel
Gabriel told her so when he said all things are possible with God at your side.
Her long barren cousin Elizabeth was pregnant
with child after languishing many years. That child would be known as John the
Baptist, the prophet who heralded the Messiah.
Mary herself was pregnant with Jesus, not by
relations with a man, but by a bond with God, and trust in His promises to her,
“his
lowly servant.”
Here’s what she said, “From
this day all generations will call me blessed: the Almighty has done great things for me, and holy is his Name.”
Mary knew this mission was only possible
because God loved her so much that he chose her to bear his only begotten Son.
Then Mary echoes St. Paul words by sharing
the actions of God in the world:
God scatters the proud in their conceit. God
casts down the mighty from their thrones. God lifts up the lowly, and fills the
hungry with good things. God sends the rich away empty.
St. Paul says when we says “Yes” to God and live
for Christ, we are to let our love of others be sincere, yes, even to love our
enemies, or those who persecute or criticize us.
We are to hate what is evil and hold on to
what is good. We are to show honor to others at all times, and never honor ourselves
or think ourselves better than others.
Please remember the next time you SnapChat or
Tweet or pose for the perfect selfie.
Always let your actions be for the glory of God, never for your own
glory. 
We are to serve the Lord. And be people of
hope, enduring affliction (the hard times in our lives) through perseverance in
prayer.
We are to be people of gratitude, thanking
God often for the many blessings in our lives.
We are to show hospitality and mercy to all
those we meet, especially those living on the margins, as outcasts in our
society.
This is your Mission Possible.
Graduates, are you ready to accept your
mission?
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