Identity and Mission

Most of us don’t actually struggle with motivation, we struggle with clarity. We want God to hand us a personalised mission statement for today, but we skip the deeper question: do I know who I am, and do I know whose I am? We work through a simple framework that cuts through the fog: relationship leads to identity, and identity leads to mission. When relationship with Christ is thin, mission feels like pressure. When relationship is real, mission becomes obvious, concrete, and surprisingly ordinary.

We use the Road to Emmaus as a blueprint for Catholic evangelization and missionary discipleship. Jesus seeks out two disheartened disciples who are walking the wrong direction, then patiently accompanies them, listens, and rebuilds trust. Next, he breaks open Scripture and restores the context they lost in grief, showing how the whole biblical story points to Christ. That movement matters for anyone feeling confused, disappointed, or spiritually numb, because the Gospel is not just information, it is the key that reorders reality.

Then everything converges at the table. They recognise Jesus in the breaking of the bread, and the scene mirrors the Mass itself: Christian witness and gathering, the Liturgy of the Word, and the Liturgy of the Eucharist. We talk about why the Eucharist is the “source and summit” of Catholic life, how confession restores communion when sin fractures relationship, and why being sent from Mass is not a metaphor but a real commissioning. We also connect the New Evangelization to Our Lady of Guadalupe and to the everyday truth that your family, your workplace, and your community can be mission territory without pitting local mission against “old school” global missions.

If you want a clearer Catholic mission, start where Jesus starts: relationship. Subscribe, share this with a friend who feels stuck, and leave a review so more people can find the conversation.

Transcript

Relationship Identity Mission Framework

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Well, you want to know your mission? Well, mission comes from identity. So you have to know who you are before you know what your mission is. And your identity comes from your relationships. So the foundation of everything is relationship. Then you know your identity, then you know mission. Relationship, identity, mission.

Welcome Prayer And Easter Mission

SPEAKER_02 0:23

Welcome to another episode of Christerocast. I'm here again with Father Josh Mayer, uh Vicar of Clergy for the Diocese of Gallup, and also our director of vocations. Uh, if you enjoying listening or watching this show, don't forget to like and subscribe and ring that bell and all those other fun things. Uh, Father, as always, we're gonna start off with a prayer and uh I'll start us off this time. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Lord, uh, we ask you to enlighten this conversation and our friendship and help us to be missionaries uh in this discussion, and we turn everything we have over to you through your mother, and relying totally on the Holy Spirit as we say, Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of thy faithful and kindle in us the fire of thy love. Send forth thy spirit and we shall be created, and thou shalt renew the face of the earth. Let us pray, O God, who dost instruct the hearts of thy faithful by the light of the Holy Spirit, grant us in that same spirit to be truly wise and ever to rejoice in his consolation through Christ our Lord. Amen. Amen. And I'm gonna point out for our audience that you made me open with a prayer this time. Um we're we're clearly for anybody that watches these episodes back to back, we're filming them back to back. Um, I don't just wear the same clothes every day. You do, I do, but I don't. But um so, Father, I'm glad to being able to go into kind of a part two of what we were discussing before, which was in this Easter season, you know, there's so much call to mission and being missionary disciples. And like you said, even in the church or in the mass itself, the mass is the beginning and the dismissal to go on that journey, right? It's a starting, it's a starting point. So we just recently had the

Road To Emmaus As A Model

SPEAKER_02 2:12

readings of the road to Emmaus, and you had some thoughts around how that actually itself relates to mission.

SPEAKER_03 2:19

Yeah, in the in the beautiful story of the road to Emmaus, when those two disciples are going away from Jerusalem, going away from the community and the place where they're supposed to be with the others who have come to believe in Jesus Christ, Jesus encounters them on the journey, and we see kind of a a three-step um uh training, a methodology, um uh model of evangelization, of sharing the gospel. And I just should note that I stole most of this from uh a brief sermon that Bishop Barron gave years ago, but it's just so good, and I'm sure he stole it from someone else, so it's okay. Um that so the what happens at first, it says, uh, you know, it's still Easter Sunday, and these two Cleopas and another are going away from Jerusalem. They're leaving the way, they're going the wrong way, and uh going back to Emmaus because uh they've been so disheartened. Now, Jesus is actually already risen from the dead, they just don't know it, although they've heard others in their group say it, but I that the desolation and grief, uh maybe despair that uh that they that hit them after our Lord's death is is so strong that they're leaving. Okay, so they're they're leaving, and you get the sense that their um their faith has been shaken uh so much that they're not with the with the community of the faithful anymore. And then Jesus shows up and walks with them on the way. Uh, and of course, at first, um, for the majority of of what's related, their eyes are present prevented from recognizing him. So, so they they they have this this person journeying with them, this man journeying with them, he's asking them questions, and he's just walking with them and listening to their heart, listening to them, letting them speak and express what they've been through. And uh, and they share all these events that happened in Jerusalem surrounding Jesus Christ, but they thought he was going to be the one to to save the world, the one that was sent by God. They thought he was the missionary that was sent by God, and uh, but now you know he's been killed by by the religious and civil leaders both. And uh, and there's been rumors that he's risen from the dead, but we're leaving, we're leaving.

Accompaniment And Christian Witness

SPEAKER_03 4:29

And so first, the the first stage that that Bishop Barron talks about in in that little homily is yeah, so the first thing is he just accompanies, right? He just he just walks with them and listens to them, and and in in this case, he seeks them out, right? Like he's the one he goes to find them, he goes to find them. They're leaving, they're going the wrong way, he goes to find them. He's not waiting for them to change their mind and come back. He goes and seeks them out, and he's just with them. He's just with them. And the uh the church in especially in since the Vatican II, the document Missio Agentes, echoed by Pope John Paul II and and other popes, are the first stage of of missionary work, the first stage of evangelization is Christian witness. It's Christian witness. So the first stage is not proclamation of the gospel, the first stage is Christian witness, which is uh the witness of our words and especially action, is a witness of our life. We know that you know uh mankind, men in this era uh don't listen to teachers so much as they are convinced by witnesses and examples, people that are living the life. So the first stage is Christian witness. And what is the first thing that Jesus does? Well, I mean, he's he's Jesus, he is Christ, so he's witnessing just by being there to himself, but he's going out to be with them, to be with them. That's the first thing.

SPEAKER_02 5:52

Well, and I think uh in that in that regard, I was just thinking as you said that um do we even know the names of the disciples on Amaeus?

SPEAKER_03 6:01

So I didn't I didn't uh re-research it uh even for the homily I gave the other day. Um but because there is it's Cleopus or Klopus, and another point in one of the gospels it says uh Mary, the wife of Clopus. Oh, so one of one of the theories, leading theories, I think, is that it's actually Clopus and his wife Mary, who have both been disciples for quite some time. Mary's been one of the women who are with them. You know, there's a few Marys, right? The Blessed Mother Mary Magdalene, but also Mary, the wife of Clopus. And um, so one of the leading theories, I believe, among scripture scholars is is that this is actually the married couple, Clopus and his wife. If Cleopus and Clopus are the same person, spelled differently in different gospels, or it could be, you know, this other guy named Cleopus.

SPEAKER_02 6:50

Just like there's 20 Marys and there was a Jimmy. Yeah, right. Well, so what struck me was the fact that this is one of the most famous stories in the Bible, right? Everybody knows the road to Emmaus, and we talk about the road to Emmaus all the time. But the kind of lead characters, I mean, Christ obviously being the lead in all of them, it's not James and John or Paul and Peter, it's Cleopas and maybe Mary or maybe Jimmy, whatever, whatever it is. Yeah, but Christ, like you said, seeks them out just like he seeks out every single one of us, like he actually loves every single one of us.

SPEAKER_03 7:25

Yeah, I mean there's so many other people that were associated closely with Jesus uh when he was in his public ministry that we we don't know their stories. It doesn't mean that they weren't there and and Jesus didn't know them all by name and by heart, and you know. Um so there's certainly an invitation there, I think, in that anonymity to see ourselves in that.

SPEAKER_02 7:46

And we're we're called to do that as well, right? Like seek out everybody, not just seek out your spouse, not just seek out your friend, not just main character types.

SPEAKER_03 7:54

Yeah, yeah. Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:56

Um, make everybody the main character.

SPEAKER_03 7:58

Well, and so that's the first stage, and which goes back to the first stage in in church speak and the documents of the church on missionary work, it would align with Christian witness, right? The first stage. Here it's you know, being present and being with that, with them, listening to them. Clearly, they start to trust him, you know, as just by his presence. And then so then the next part, what's the next thing he does?

Scripture Opens The Right Perspective

SPEAKER_03 8:20

He says, Oh, how foolish you are. How foolish and slow you are to believe all the things that have happened. And and he go, he opens up specifically how these things were actually, he says Luke says they're necessary, and that that they were in the point being that these have been in God's plan. He's been working toward this forever. And because they weren't able to understand the scriptures, uh, how everything in the Old Testament, all the prophets, the law, all these things were all leading up to what Jesus accomplished, even though it was through accepting crucifixion at our hands, he still accomplished salvation, defeated death, the devil sin broke out from the tomb. Uh, and everything's actually been leading to this. So, one of those situations where they're we uh surmise that they're like Mary Magdalene when she can't recognize Jesus at first, overwhelmed with grief or disappointment or uh and it's throwing them into confusion, they're not able to see clearly, and they've lost the right context. So they're letting maybe the the event of the crucifixion itself, without the resurrection, without the scriptures leading up to it, uh they're letting that uh what they see that as overwhelm them. And we do this in our life too. We get overwhelmed by stuff, confused by events in our life, we lose perspective. So Jesus brings them back to the proper perspective. How does he do that? By breaking open the scriptures. So when I and when I I've given, you know, I've talked about this in homilies. I always tell my parishioners, like, you know, you have to deal with this homily that I'm giving you. They got a homily from Jesus. They got a homily from Jesus. That homily was probably, you know, clearly the best homily in the world. I'm sorry that I know this one is not living up to it, but at least I can tell you about our Lord's homily. So he breaks open the scriptures for them, how everything, how everything pointed to him, which is you know the role of a good homily, is to help us understand the scriptures that we've just heard. So give them some context, fill in, fill in the information, the story, the history, um, but and so help us understand the scriptures that we've heard, how that helps us understand Jesus and how all this relates to our life. And clearly our Lord is doing this in very intensely with them.

SPEAKER_02 10:30

Well, so and I love uh, you know, you steal from bishops, I steal from popes. I love that Pope Benedict, what he said is he in Jesus of Nazareth, his book, he actually focuses on that moment and that phrase almost as the beginning of his pedagogy for describing Christ, which is that all of Scriptures are about Christ. Not just that, like, oh, these passages, he explained how all of scriptures are.

SPEAKER_03 10:54

Everything leads to him, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So in going back to that, um, to that the mission, the missionary model, you're probably also sensing that there's uh uh this the structure of the mass is present here in the road to Emmaus as well. But going back I should have recognized that.

SPEAKER_02 11:12

I know I was like, oh wait, wait, liturgy of the word, and then oh okay.

SPEAKER_03 11:16

But also the the church is the church's model that we've been given in documents, that first part, Christian witness, and the second one is proclamation of the gospel. So the second one, just what Jesus is doing, he's bringing them back, understanding the gospel that's just happened. I mean, they're they're in there, um, uh in light of all the of all the scriptures. So um, so that gospel proclamation, the church says it's a second part of missionary work. First part, Christian witness. You need to be a witness with your life for the second part to be credible, right? To have a foundation to credibly share the scriptures, you know, the story of Jesus Christ and how how everything is led up to him and how everything has been changed by him. So that's part two. And then, you know, at this point, as they say later on, their hearts are burning within them. They're they're uh they're really starting to come back to the faith. They've been given their context back. They're able to see reality correctly again because Christ has been put at the center of it once more. Uh, and then uh and then the kind of the third movement happens, they arrive at Emmaus, and and our Lord does his like this little

Recognising Jesus In The Eucharist

SPEAKER_03 12:25

head fake thing where he gives the impression that he's continuing to he's continuing on. They still don't recognize him yet, even though we sense that there's been a real transformation in them, they actually still don't recognize him, which is kind of incredible. Uh and then uh and then but the Lord has warmed their hearts up, you know, with the fire of his love. So out of joy and charity, they invite him to stay with them, still not really getting who he is. And then it's this amazing thing where it says, uh, well, they they while they were at table, he took bread and broke it and gave thanks, and then they recognized him in the breaking of the bread, and he disappears. And I love that part. It just says he just disappeared, and it's like, where did he go? Like, did he did he look at his watch and be like, Oh, I I have there's three other people living in Jerusalem that I have to catch up with? Like these guys are on the road to Bethlehem now. Yeah, I have to go. I have a few other roads to hit before bedtime. Like, no, where did he go? He just took bread, blessed, said the blessing, gave thanks, and they recognize him in the Eucharist, and he's gone. Where is he? Well, he's still there, he's still there, but he's fully present, body, blood, soul, and divinity in the Eucharist that he has just consecrated. And the words are very clear. I mean, they're very he's very clear that this isn't they didn't uh pick up some stuff at uh at all such before it closed to eat together. This is the ritual meal of the Eucharist. So on the way, he did uh he there's a Christian witnessed, we call that the intro to the mass at the beginning, and then liturgy of the word. Now we have liturgy of the Eucharist. Once he's present in the Eucharist, he's no longer present in the form he's been with them, he's now fully present in the Eucharist. He's making that clear that that's how he's going to remain with them.

SPEAKER_02 14:15

And then uh uh you don't need him at that point in any other way, right? I mean, that is like you said before, the source and summit is that it just re-emphasizes uh you know John chapter six is that that he is the sacrifice, that he is truly present, and when you consume him, you're right you are present with Christ.

SPEAKER_03 14:37

Yeah, and the in the context of you know what's going on in the gospels at this point in our Easter season, the readings that we're going through uh are you know, those early ones have to do with well, our Lord was present with them after his resurrection for 40 days, then he ascended to the Father. And but he made this promise that he'll always be with us. So how does it work out? I will always be with you. See ya! Like I will always be with you. By the way, go do we'll go baptize everybody, I'm out of here. Well, no, it's like he's he's showing them in these 40 days, beginning on Easter Sunday, how he's present with them still. And when those two go back to the make it back to Jerusalem, they excitedly share with the others that the Lord was made present to them in the breaking of the bread. So Jesus is is is getting his community to understand this is one of this is the fullest and most powerful way that I am still with you. It's in the Eucharist.

SPEAKER_02 15:33

Well, and I man, I just love our faith. It's it's every time, it's just we everything exists in layers, and it's just layers upon layers upon layers that are all so complementary to each other. So I'm thinking about a conversation I had with Father Brown about the mass, where we talked about that, you know, the mass is like you had said before, the training or the preparation for going on mission, right? Like, and you get everything you need to be a missionary in the mass. And now we're on the journey, and Christ has given us a uh, like you said, like an instruction on how to be a missionary. And what instruction does he give us? He gives us the mass. So right, so it's just like the mass prepares you for the mass, prepares you for the mass, and and it just kind of shows the the I mean the beauty of God's song of creation, right? Is that we've just everything ties together, it all is and it's all really it's centered on Christ, which of course our community is all centered around the Eucharist, right?

SPEAKER_03 16:28

So uh the sacraments and the community around the sacraments, we generally generally call that a parish, you know, something something like that. But um uh and so you we've just talked about all these crazy layers going on in the road to Ameus, and there's I'm sure there's hundreds more that we don't even know yet, but uh incredible paradigm of of the liturgy, how and of of evangelization and missionary work. Once they recognize Jesus in the

Sent Back To Strengthen The Church

SPEAKER_03 16:55

breaking of the bread, what do they do? In a sense, like Mary Magdalene was sent, once she recognized him, she's sent to the apostles. Well, they're they're sent back to to those who are gathering in Jerusalem who, even though they haven't left, are also disheartened and uh and they get back and share their experience, and they they hear that Simon has also uh seen Jesus raised from the dead, so uh they start you know really evangelizing each other at that point.

SPEAKER_02 17:21

Well, so I was thinking kind of two things that struck me. First was how much this relates to confession, too. Because uh, you know, as Catholics, we believe that if you've committed a mortal sin, you have to go to confession before you receive Christ in the Eucharist. And I think that what you were describing to me, I mean, even with my own sins, I've fallen into despair and depression and and anxiety and things before too. And it's not until I'm fully uh reunified with my I'm even understand what I what's right and what's wrong, but until I'm fully unified

Relationship Identity Mission In Daily Life

SPEAKER_02 17:55

with Christ, I'm not ready to receive him back into my life. So there's just so much, I mean, the whole church is there.

SPEAKER_03 18:01

Yeah, the there's another thing I was thinking about as you as you were talking and as we've been talking about this, which is which kind of flows from this as well. Uh, and I first heard this from the companions of Christ uh crew in Denver, uh, which is uh, you know, and you had mentioned earlier, maybe in the first part of this podcast, that uh, you know, well, we we often want to know what's my particular mission, you know. Great, great guys, the whole church has a mission. We're sent by Jesus Christ. What's my mission? What's my mission? How do I know what I'm supposed to do today? Tell me right now. And uh, and and that the the uh saying that we always use with the uh guys in the companions of Christ was that um well, you want to know your mission. Well, mission comes from identity. So you have to know who you are before you know what your mission is, and your identity comes from your relationships. So the foundation of everything is relationship, then you know your identity, then you know mission. Relationship, identity, mission. And so uh I can't really know my mission. If you know you can't know your mission today if you don't know that you're a dad and a husband. And if you don't know that, you're gonna be doing a bunch of other stupid stuff. But if you're if you're very aware of the relationships that you have have made you a husband and father, then you know that it's most important today that your kids are loved and have food on the table and your wife knows that she's appreciated, that you're not the only one who had a long day, but she did too. And you know, I mean, all could be that comes from those relationships which give you your identity, and now you know your mission, you know what you're supposed to do. And you see this on the road to Emmaus as well. They've lost their foundational relationship because they think that Jesus is just dead, right? So if you think someone's just dead, you don't have a relationship with them anymore. And Jesus is the central relationship that helps us know who we are, he's the like the core, the revelation of the Father's love. So their relationship is out of whack because they think that the one that they're supposed to have the relationship with is gone. And so Jesus comes and he's with them. He restores them to relationship, that gives them their identity back. And once they finally realize that Jesus is really with them, he's with them for sure in the Eucharist. All that their their relationship within has been him has been restored, their identity can be restored, and then what do they do? The first thing they do, they go do when they do something, their mission is to go back to the community, then they're gonna get sent out even further. So you see that in this uh in the in the road to Emmaus as well. There's so much going on.

SPEAKER_02 20:32

Well, and that's so perfect, Father. So, you know, this

Guadalupe And Mission Territory Today

SPEAKER_02 20:35

podcast um is part of our greater Christeros Men's movement that we're that we're kind of it's a burgeoning movement, and um we try to center it on uh a common life of prayer, almost like a rule of life for for particularly lay men, but all Catholic men. And it's rooted in identity, relationship, and mission. And what we do is our first week is we work on our identity and relationship with God. Second week, we work on it with our family, third week, we work on it with our brothers, and it's not until the fourth week that we go on mission. And I was thinking as you said this, like, what does it mean to go on mission? And we've got Our Lady of Guadalupe right behind us, and um, you know, John Paul II was very big on the new evangelization about how even now in this world, like the people that need to be uh preached to and you need to go on mission to, sometimes they're the existing Catholic countries. And I think of Guadalupe, that's actually not even that new because it was the same 500 years ago uh when Guadalupe appeared to Juan Diego. You know, I uh when I'm giving these talks about Native Americans and Catholics, I always say is the Spanish thought they were going to bring the faith to the indigenous peoples of the New World. But in the end, it was an indigenous man that brought a mestizo woman, Guadalupe, you know, our mother in form of both of both the European and indigenous back to the Europeans. And that was what caused the greatest conversion in the history of the world, right? Eight million converted. Not because the Spanish brought bought brought the church to the Indigenous, but because the Indigenous brought Mary and her son back to the existing church. And so I think like you no matter where we are, there's always opportunities in your home, in your community, whatever it is to go on mission.

SPEAKER_03 22:30

Yeah. Yeah, I think there's look, you know, especially since I'm a priest, you know, for a mission diocese and also have experience uh in serving in in other impoverished places in the world. I think one of the mistakes we can make is is um is pitting these different types of missions, so to speak, against each other. So so you know, there it's definitely true. You know, I in my family, uh I'm one of the only practicing Catholics in a very large family. I know you have a lot of family that's not practicing anymore either or comes from different faith traditions. And so it's certainly true that our backyard is mission territory, our family is mission territory, you know, um, but there really are, you know, real, real old school missions, you know, places that that don't have the enough people, that don't have that don't have the faith is not uh self-sustaining, hasn't become strong enough, certainly, you know, don't have financial resources, whatever it is. Uh there's real mission mission as well. And I and I don't think that those are in competition with each other, it's just the reality of the world today.

How To Join The Cristeros

SPEAKER_00 23:45

Thank you for watching this episode of Christerocast. For more information on the Christeros or to join the movement, check out our website at theCristeros.org. That's theChristeros with an S.org. There you could find our daily reflection series as well as many of our publications and articles. Thank you for watching, and viva Christore.