From Disciple to Apostle

Finding my mission

At the end of the semester, I think of a word 'disciple' which comes from the Latin word meaning 'student'. 

In regardless of the fact that we teach or learn, we all are disciples who need to learn to be a mature human being through discipline.

C.S.Lewis says it well, "Discipleship means ‘discipline!’ The disciple is that one who has been taught or trained by the Master, who has come with his ignorance, superstition, and sin, to find learning, truth, and forgiveness from the Saviour. Without discipline we are not disciples, even though we profess His Name and pass for a follower of the lowly Nazarene. In an undisciplined age when liberty and license have replaced law and loyalty, there is greater need than ever before that we be disciplined to be His disciples."

We are the disicples of Jesus who commands us, "Learn from me for I am meek and humble of heart"(Mt 11,29).

If we become true disciples of the Lord, we are ready to be an apostle, a person sent out on a special mission like John the Baptist.

We all have a special mission as Christians. The mission is fundamentally the same in preparing a way in the world before the Saviour's coming.

What is your mission? What do you love? How do you contribute to the world? What makes you wake up in the morning?

The answer will define who we are. I find an appropriate answer from Fr. Arrupe Jesuit who said,

"Nothing is more practical than finding God, than falling in Love in a quite absolute, final way. What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning, what you do with your evenings, how you spend your weekends, what you read, whom you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude. Fall in Love, stay in love, and it will decide everything."

As the apostles of Jesus Christ, I pray that we fall in love and stay in love which will decide everything.