WHEN IS A CAREER A MINISTRY?

Dec. Recognition, Mount Marty College—2002 –S. Ann Kessler.

Graduates, families and friends, and members of the academic and monastic communities here on Mount Marty. 

(A brief historical digression) —Did you know that  in the 1880’s, this hill was already called Mt. Marty in newspaper reports about our Martin Marty, first bishop of the Dakotas who resided here in the house he had built, which you may see just south of the new monastery wing?  It was the Benedictine Bishop Marty, who first convinced Sisters, in 1887, to move to this hill.  So he can be credited with beginning what you find here today—the college, hospital, monastery, and this chapel named in his memory.  This hill is appropriately called—Mt. Marty.   

I will be speaking primarily to the students this morning, but the rest of you may listen in.  Graduates, let’s consider together whether you want your career to be a ministry, or if you are going to be satisfied with its just being another profession or occupation.  You have worked long and hard (some longer and harder than others?), to earn a degree that indicates you have spent years learning how to make a living, and even more important, how to live.  Will you be able to call your future work, your career, a ministry?    Will you accept the challenge to become a person with a mission?

Your planned career –whatever it may be, could be viewed as just another job, something you write on the line when the credit card application asks for occupation, or if you make it so, that means of livelihood, source of your future income, may focus on putting the needs of others first, and be called a ministry, not just a career, profession, or occupation.  Ministry requires that you have a mission.

Every institution or corporation of note today boasts a mission statement. Actually the  word, “mission,” is derived from the Latin, missio, to be sent—to act as an envoy.  Let’s review our alma mater’s mission statement a moment, how it incorporates the values you have heard so much about during your time here--and how you, adopting and adapting that mission become a minister to others.

The translation of alma mater is learned or nutritious mother.  You become, today, one of the alumni of this, your and my alma mater.  What have you gleaned from this association with this learned nutritious mother?  As you recall or don’t recall, Mount Marty’s Mission statement with the concomitant values reads: “Mount Marty College, an academic community in the Catholic Benedictine liberal arts tradition, prepares students for a contemporary world of work, service to the human community, and personal growth.”  Let’s focus on how that phrase, “service to the human community” can be implemented as you go out to minister.

You’ve heard our values stated time and time again—being aware of God’s presence in your life, being hospitable to those who come to you and to whom you go out to, forming community wherever you are, and never giving up on the quest for knowledge—thus indulging in life-long learning.  All of these are embodied in the college’s mission statement.  Have these values been caught?   Are you ready to carry out your mission now, partake in the way Webster defines ministry--“giving things needful to others.”  Will that be your goal in life?  

The Apostle, Paul, tells all Christians in his letter to the Corinthians, that there is a variety of gifts and all sorts of service to be done.   S. Evangeline, a former president of the college, pointed out to those of us attending an international conference in Canada in the ‘80’s that “ministry is the way that Christians carry out their mission.”  When we minister to the needs of others she stated, we fulfill the command of Jesus to “do this in memory of me” a phrase we hear regularly during almost all our Christian church rituals.   Ministry is not limited to churchmen and women. “Everyone possesses a ministerial characteristic.” (S. E.)

How will that characteristic manifest itself in your life as you minister to the needs of others wherever your time will be spent in the future—using your God-given talents and the educational opportunities you have received – an education generously supported by your families, friends, and scholarship donors (as well as bankers who funded those loans) to whom we all owe a debt of gratitude.WhWi

In his Rule, St. Benedict calls his monastery a school for the Lord’s service.  The Sisters who founded this college had in mind the same goal—establishing a school for the Lord’s service, a school for those with a mission, with the vocation, the call to go out to minister to God’s people.

Bishop Marty also considered education a primary Benedictine vocation.  He once wrote back in the 1880’s to his home abbey in Switzerland  that the monks and nuns in the Dakotas were here witnessing to who they were called to be,  Benedictine religious, yes, but also “educators and missionaries.”  (AK in Benedictines ’83:25).  You, too, can be missionaries and educators as you work.  

In Chapter 4 of his Rule, titled “The Tools of Good Works,” Benedict asks us not to pass by anyone who needs our love.  As you well know, our love, our time, and our expressions of gratitude are among our most precious treasures—so as we have been gifted with them, we must feel compelled to share with others.   

Benedict was echoing the New Commandment Christ gave us, “Love God with your whole heart and soul and your neighbor as yourself.”   Latin uses the word, “proximum” which most translate as “neighbor” but would better translate as “those who are proximate to us.”  In other words, all whose lives we touch. Recall the Good Samaritan story Christ told—emphasizing that snobs, those who feel superior, racists, and  religious legalists will not stop to assist someone in need,  but the real minister, the real follower of Christ, always will.  It was the person the others passersby scorned, who provided for the care of the man who was mugged.

We are commanded to love others as ourselves—so we begin with love of self (we are loved unconditionally by God always, so we must certainly have lovable characteristics).  However, concentration on self, self-centeredness, selfishness, is not Christian—we must give to others that love we have been given—in the  form of service done insofar as we are able—first to self, family, friends, then others who touch our lives.

Impractical?  Not so.   I am aware that most of our Mt. Marty alumni witness how they and you can serve by serving in a diversity of ministries, in all kinds of professions and occupations. It is not just those alums who are nuns, monks, members of other religious orders or even leaders in education, principals like  Jerome Klimisch here in Yankton, Craig Mock in Mitchell, Jason Selchert in Wakonda, Todd Strom in Nebraska, and numerable others who daily attend to the needs of students but many more in coaching and education—who certainly continue to minister in spite of the limited salaries—and you don’t really have to leave our campus to see alums who have been ministering to your needs.  They have been among your professors here, almost all of the Sisters on faculty and staff as well as alums like  Mary Miller, Myrna Brennick; the residence hall  director,  head of facility maintenance (yes, Kelly Heller and Steve Hermanson are also alums)  or  Jonna in  the development department -- staff in several other areas.

Off-campus other educators and coaches by the hundreds scattered world wide –from  Kathy in Australia, Mark in Germany, Liz in Spain, several in Africa and Jack in California—along with many others --are responding to the needs of students at all levels.  Many of you, too, are prepared go into the classroom.

It’s an awesome responsibility you will be undertaking.  Henry Adams reminds us that teachers affect eternity, they can never know where their influence stops.  Hundreds of our alumni also minister directly to others in need of health care and dietary information.  They too, are ministering daily. 

Many of our alumni also do other community service of all sorts; some generously contribute by sacrificing financially, so others can have the same opportunities they had—can learn how to minister to others.  I get a real personal lift, when an anesthetist whom I’ve often contacted on the phone-a-thon, says “Sure, put me down for my usual amount” (which is in four figures) because he wants others to be able to minister as he does.   He cares—he responds to others’ needs in his work, his career, and outside it.  His financial aid, has helped you arrive here today.

Recently I witnessed how business people also minister—I know a good example for those of you planning that kind of career.  When Ted Wallendorf, a basketball star, one of my former advisees, was inducted into the Athletic Hall of Fame here during our recent Blue and Gold Days, although he had originally been a coach and teacher, he has now opted to become a financial planner and broker. 

As CEO of a small firm he founded, he happily confided in me that when the stock market plummeted in recent months,  because he had cared enough  about the clients of his firm, having prepared  himself and staff for just an eventuality by study leading to astute diversification of portfolios,  had been able not only to weather the downturn, but managed so well that his investors reaped  a very substantial interest on their savings—for which they are most grateful –knowing that because someone ministered to their needs,  they would be able to sustain themselves and loved ones dependent on them through financial crises and imminent retirement.  In return for that blessing he doubled last year’s  contribution to the annual fund. He ministers, bankers among our alums minister, accountants minister, salesmen and women, wholesalers, retailers, journalists, and authors minister.

Lawyers like Scott, Shawn, Tim, Jason, and Michelle minister to those who seek legal assistance, or prosecute those who have violated others’ rights. Jason Even ministers in Brookings as he assists the Department of Criminal Investigation to protect all of us from those who would harm us or our loved ones.  Hayward, a very special Afro-American alum and former athlete, now an undercover agent working with the ATF, serves by striving to stem the  import and sale of  illegal drugs. Although naming all alums and how they serve would take many days, one must also mention certain stay-at-home moms and dads who cater daily to the needs of their children and spouses and often to others—pre-schoolers and the needy elderly, whom  they take in to care for while their parents or families minister to others outside their homes.

The challenge for you then, is to make of your future career-- a ministry.  The ultimate test is—are we doing it just for ourselves or do we care about serving the needs of others?    Thomas Merton once wrote that prayer and contemplation must also result in action.    The Apostle James earlier told us  (2:15)  “If a brother or sister has nothing to wear and no food for the day and you say to them, good-bye and good luck!  Keep warm and well fed, but do not meet their bodily needs, what good is that?  So it is with the faith that does nothing in practice.  It is thoroughly lifeless.”

Julian of Norwich, a great Benedictine mystic, relates that “the fullness of joy is to see God in everything”—that is, in everyone whose lives we touch.  So if and when we see God in the faces of all whom we serve and meet, then we and they will all be achieve contentment and happiness.  We will be  fulfilling a ministry, giving ourselves and others the kind of  joy we look forward to—especially during this annual Christmas season.

This is not easily accomplished—in fact it is a daily struggle—nothing is perfect until we reach the bright beyond.    Life, you know, is not expected to be a bed of roses and even those do have thorns.  Life can be more like a bowl of cherries—sometimes it is just the pits!  But Cardinal Newman reminds us that according to our need will we be given strength.  That is a good point to keep in mind.

Someone who prefers anonymity—whom I don’t know either, once wrote about our need for each other—in what he or she called a  “Declaration of Interdependence.”

I quote:  “Let it be declared, announced, and hereby celebrated…that all people everywhere are dependent upon one another, That everyone needs everyone else for freedom, life, love, and happiness.  That all things in the natural order are dependent upon everything else.  That this universally shared dependence comes from God and is of God.  And that each individual part of this great relationship has its own part to play;  its own destiny to fulfill in God’s plan.”  end quote….

Individuals who have had near-death experiences often relate that during their brief period in the spirit world, they were not questioned how many times they did this or that, but were asked: “How did you love?   How was that love put into service of others?”

Virginia Gildersleeve tells that the mission of education is to “ make one able to: think straight; have a knowledge of the past and a vision for the future; have a skill to do useful service and an urge to act for the well-being of the community.”  Has your education done that?  What does that well-being of others consist?  Whose lives will you touch—and improve?

You thought that you had your last exam, didn’t you?  I have news for you.  er We all have one last final to take.  Christ has well informed us, however,  of the criteria on which we will be graded.   He will not only conduct our oral exam, but  He has given us the content of the test so that we can prepare for it.  You’ll  find it in the Gospel of Matthew (25:31) –where Christ is quoted as saying  “ Whatsoever you do to others, you do to me.”  So let us make His examples relevant to our day,  beginning with “ I was hungry and you gave me to eat,  thirsty and you gave me to drink (all who grow, harvest, cook, bake, feed little ones in home and other care centers and families who gather around the table for meals), and add,   I was uneducated and you instructed me,  ill and you doctored or nursed me while I fought disease or injuries;  in need of an ethical lawyer, accountant, banker, computer expert, or financial planner and you were there for me—homeless and you took me in, adopted me, or built a house for  me and my family.  I needed a ride and you offered to chauffeur me; I needed someone to just sit and listen to me and you did. I needed a hug and you put your arms around me.  I needed your presence at my wedding or at the funeral of a loved one and you were there.  I needed to play and you took time out to take me to a game, to play catch with me, to share a movie, to engage in a video game, or to dine and dance with me.  In fact, whenever I had a legitimate need you responded to it insofar as you were able—insofar as you felt what was best for me. 

Then, when you pass that final test you will hear the Son of God say “You have served Me in others all your life, come join me in my Kingdom for all eternity.”  And so we run to our eternal reward by our good deeds. 

Graduates, we need each other. The world out there needs you –to minister. Will you go out to make a career that can be seen by yourself and others as another occupation, profession, source of income, just a job, or will it be a ministry?

Congratulations, graduates, for preparing yourself to live the rest of your life ministering to others.  Hopefully, first, you will also minister to those who have come to share with you today by expressing your gratitude to family members, friends, college administration, faculty and staff  for the part they played, the sacrifices they made-- to make this day possible.

We know that we can count on being as proud of you as we are of those who have been here before you.

May God bless you and your future ministries.  Thank you.