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10 JUNE-JULY 2024 | DENVER CATHOLIC O N M I SS IO N I HAVE MY MISSION "I have my mission." This is how St. John Henry Newman situ- ates these desires, meditating on the "definite service," the partic- ular work that God has given to each of us. We might think of this kind of mission as something lofty, but it often entails the daily sacrifice and presence of others within our normal duties. We have our own unique role in God's plan of salvation, which we do not devise for ourselves but must receive. Our identity is not something we create; it stems from a call to enter into the life of Christ, continuing to unfold his gift of himself in the world. ST. J O H N H E N RY N E W M A N Newman further ref lects on how our mission comes from God and is ordered to others: "I am created to do something or to be something for which no one else is created; . . . He has committed some work to me, which He has not committed to another. I have my mission – I never may know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. Somehow, I am necessary for His purposes, as necessary in my place as an Archangel in his – if, indeed, I fail, He can raise another, as He could make the stones children of Abraham. Yet I have a part in this great work; I am a link in a chain, a bond of connexion bet ween persons." As we fulfill this mission, we do something great for God and the ones we love by drawing others to him. This passage from Newman's Meditations and Devotions was a favorite of my late mentor, Dr. Don Briel. He would gift it to the graduates of the Catholic Studies Program he founded at the Universit y of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. After his diagnosis with leukemia, he offered his own advice to the many former students, such as myself, who came to visit him, unpacking "Newman's vision of the fact that we have a work that is given to us, on which the plan of salvation depends. And he will say that God could give it to another, but, in fact, this is the deep implication in each of our lives that we have this great dignit y. We're meant for a ⊲ Your Role in God's Plan I want to be someone who matters. I want to make a difference, to do something great.