Do you hear it? The quiet yet persistent whisper of meaninglessness floating in the world around you… mollifying hoards of small, self-centered people on the make — masses of men and women without a past or a history, cut off from the roots.
…but there is a remedy infinitely more potent to stand against this zombification of the human person, to the man who lifts up his head, affirms his dignity, and discovers his life mission: the greatness for which he has been created.
Each one of us was born with a personal mission to carry out through the course of our lives. A mission is distinct from a vocation. A vocation is a call to a certain way of life. A mission is a call to do a certain thing. Your vocation is the framework within which you live out your mission.
Your life mission constitutes your specific and personal contribution to humanity. Your life mission is the meaning and substance of your action in the world. Many people have a clear sense of their vocation, but have some real trouble in being able to uncover and articulate their mission. I’ve found this often to be the case, for example when we spend so much emphasis taking on the identity of what it means to be a Christian, or a father, or a priest, or a worker, or a missionary, or even just as a man, but fail to understand what you personally are created to do in this world with the gifts and talents that God has given you and the needs of the world you feel strongly compelled to respond to with dedication and zeal.
When you make your life decisions based on your life mission, instead of on your whims or outside pressures, your life choices become much more meaningful and powerful in living a life of integrity, with a clear thread of continuity linking all the moments of your life together towards a life of true greatness.
Knowledge of yourself and of the world provide the basic information necessary to discover a mission in general, but to really begin to uncover and live your personal mission, you must begin to deepen your understanding of who you are…. What is your story…
To be able to powerfully and confidently answer the question “Who am I?” You need to reflect upon your story and contemplate the key elements of it. Your mission cannot be separated from your story. You have a story to tell, and you tell it daily with your choices and actions — but is the story you’re currently telling with your life the one you want to be telling?
You are a man with a history and a memory. A history from even before you were born. Your story is not only about you — and it didn’t begin with you, just as it won’t end with you — it is also about the people who live on in you, those great men and women of your past who strove and suffered and loved and labored so that you might be.
Your story is not a limitation, but a strength. It is a light which allows you to interpret reality with depth and originality, and a mighty rock to stand on that gives you the energy and sureness necessary to make the decisions that lead to true human greatness. Those who uncover their life mission and live by it with confidence are the true leaders of humanity. Their heart is strong. When you do this you discover a clear direction in life and you feel the comforting and strengthening presence of those who live on in you.
I urge you, my brother, to begin on this journey today. Follow the “Learn more…” button on this page to begin.