From the book, This Is My Story. 31 Lives. Stories. Miracles. (Cityland
Foundation, Inc. and OMF Lit. Inc. pp. 195-201), may I introduce to you Mr.
Enrique Sarthou, Vice President and Senior Agency Director of Financial Services
Group of Manulife Philippines and Lay Area Pastor of Christ’s Commission
Fellowship. His life story entitled, “Trading the good life for the best” is
inspiring and worth emulating or something we may simply follow. He reveals that together with his wife, their
hearts’ desire is the Great Commission (Mt 28:18-20), the commission of Christ
to spread His Gospel. He states, “Our desire and our prayer is to see our
people in the discipleship groups multiply themselves, make their own
contribution to the fulfillment of the Great Commission.”
The New Roget’s Thesaurus presents a
good number of synonyms for the term, commission:
authorization, warrant, charge, instruction, authority, mandate, trust, brevet,
permit, certificate, diploma, delegation, consignment, task, errand, office,
assignment, proxy, power of attorney, deputation, legation, mission, embassy,
agency. However, the most appropriate,
fitted and directly related to our evangelization program series is the Great
Commission (Session No. 2).
Let us review Session 1. It was about Evangelization facilitated by Kuya Wilbert Ang. We learn that the
Catholic Church is evangelistic and we are called to be evangelizers as members
of this Church. We evangelize by
proclaiming the Good News of our salvation to all. As BCBP members, we are commanded by Jesus
Christ to bring Him and win for Him our respective marketplaces. To be effective evangelizers, we are
authorized or commissioned. This is the
significance of the Great Commission, a
requisite of Evangelization.
Personally, during my tender years I
was attracted to be a commissioned officer of the Armed Forces of the
Philippines (AFP) that I enrolled in the basic and advanced courses of the
Reserved Officers Training Corps (ROTC).
That was the first time how to “be commissioned” came into my mind. Now, with the BCBP, commissioning is the third C in the 3C’s of the life changing
processes that start with conversion (first C) then with commitment (second C).
Before we deal with the underlying and
associated circumstances that lead us to the Great Commission, let us be fully
aware of the call of Jesus to make
disciples of all men; to recognize the
need to teach and reform our society at large and our commitment as active
BCBP members to evangelize our
respective areas of responsibility.
Looking back from the Old Testament,
satan tempted and led man to disobedience.
Our fore parents, Adam and Eve lost their privilege as children of
God. They were driven away from the
Garden of Eden (Gen 3:16-19). The world
becomes satan’s kingdom where chaos and sin reign.
God’s love and mercy do not allow man
to be lost forever so that He promised a Redeemer. The plan calls for His Son,
Jesus Christ to redeem mankind by becoming one with us and offering Himself as
a sacrifice for our sin.
Before Jesus ascended to heaven, He
commanded and commissioned His disciples and it applies to all of us when He
said, “I have been given all authority of heaven and earth. Go, therefore, and make disciples from all
nations. Baptize them in the Name of the
Father and of the Son of the Holy Spirit, and teach them all that I have
commanded you. I am with you always
until the end of the world” (Mt 28:18-20).
Let us take note that all baptized
Christians whether religious or laymen comprise the Church. I say all
Christians in order to distinguish Mahatma Gandhi who claimed he was a follower
of Christ but could not be a Christian because he was a Hindu. We are united in the Great Commission though
there is diversity of functions. As laymen and as active BCBP members, we are
commissioned and ordered by Jesus for the greatest offensive in the battlefield
liberating mankind from satan’s influence.
Being drafted into God’s army we are guided by the Letter of St. Paul to
the Romans (Rom 10:14-15) to believe, to know and to preach about Christ who is
sending us. As soldiers of God and as
active BCBP members, we have the unique role to teach and proclaim the Good
News of salvation to all specifically in our respective marketplaces and in the
practice of our professions.
God the Father sent Jesus, His Son. Jesus did the same to His disciples when He
said, “Peace be with you. As the Father
has sent Me, so I send you” (Jn 20:21).
Being active BCBP members, we are commissioned to spread the Good News
and bring the light to those who live in darkness. The Father gave Jesus a mission and Jesus
commissioned us to continue to carry on the same mission.
From the Old Testament referring to
the Book of Exodus, God called Moses, “The cry of the sons of Israel has
reached Me and I have seen how the Egyptians oppress them. Go now! I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring My
people, the sons of Israel, out of Egypt” (Ex 3:9-10). As we follow verses 11-22 of the same
chapter 3 in the Book of Exodus until chapter 4 verses 1-17, we discover how
Moses responded to the call. He was
afraid of the responsibility and shrunk with such tremendous undertaking. He had lots of excuses but God assured him.
Like Moses, we are afraid of the
responsibilities associated with the mission entrusted to us. However, God assures us that there is nothing
to fear for He is always with us.
The Great Commission is a command, a call and an invitation to
teach, witness, baptize and make disciples of all nations. In our case
as BCBP members we are called to evangelize our marketplaces to proclaim the Good News of our salvation. God the Father commissioned Jesus and Jesus is commissioning us,
“Go, therefore…”..“I am with you always..” by and through the power of the
Holy Spirit. The
basic elements of the mission are: it is a command,
we need to know the target and the message under the authority of God with the assurance
of God’s presence and the power
of the Holy Spirit.
Being commanded or drafted into God’s
Mission, we need to be trained. It
started with our active participation in the Christian life program, our
Baptism in the Holy Spirit, active involvement in the marriage retreat (BCMR),
the businessmen’s retreat (BCBR) and regular attendance to our monthly
teachings/seminars/retreats, etc.
We must grow in the Word of God
through the Holy Bible with the Holy Spirit who empowers and instructs us in
everything we are supposed to do in relation to the Great Commission. We
practice this when we committed 15 minutes prayer time and 15 minutes Bible
reading.
Moreover and most importantly, we need
to grow in holiness through the Sacraments.
Sacraments are “powers that come forth” from the Body
of Christ, which is ever-living and life-giving. They are actions of the Holy Spirit at work
in His Body, the Church. They are “masterworks of God” in the new and
everlasting covenant (CCC 1116).
The mission of the BCBP is to create a
body of Christians specifically among businessmen and professionals who are
properly trained so that our individual as well as our collective action
results in the following:
Our conversion to a personal and intimate relationship with Jesus
Christ, a 180 degrees turn-around from bad to good and from good to better
living. Every time we meditate on the
Holy Rosary specifically on the Mysteries of Light, it is the third mystery,
“The proclamation of the Kingdom of God with the call of Jesus for our daily conversion”;
Our commitment to the values espoused by Jesus Christ such as justice,
mercy and genuine service and finally,Commissioning
to spread the values
of Jesus Christ to others in the conduct of our business and professions.
Do you know that there are only 2 areas
of the world left that do no succumb to the culture of death? (death = divorce, euthanasia, abortion,
termination of birth and homosexuality).
They are the Vatican City and the Philippines. The Philippines is a Christian nation yet
human rights violations, crimes of passion, corruption, kidnapping and many
more criminalities abound in great magnitude and astounding proportion.
Together with all other Christian
organizations and communities, we in the Brotherhood (BCBP) are called to be
active and cooperative participants in the Great Commission as one member of
the Big Body, the Catholic Church where Christ is the head. We are called to bring about transformation in
our society according to the Christian values espoused by Jesus Christ. This transformation must start basically
within our respective areas of responsibility or in our circles of influence.
It has been our practice in the BCBP
to share the “story of the Lord” in our respective lives. Our game plan is witnessing not preaching. As
individuals (in separate men’s and ladies’ breakfast fellowships) or as couple
sharers (in joint breakfast fellowships), we are commissioned to proclaim,
evangelize and spread the Good News of our salvation to all who are in
attendance. Naturally and basically, the
work of God must have emanated from our respective areas or jurisdictions in
the way we conduct our business and practice our professions. nmg
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