Moving Forward Gracefully

In today’s first reading,  Dt. 34: 1-12, the Lord takes Moses up to Mount Nebo to show him the lands that he promised Abraham and Sarah: “This is the land I swore to Abraham [and Sarah], Isaac [and Rebecca] and Jacob [Leah and Rachel] that I would give to their descendants. I have let you feast your eyes upon it, but you shall not cross over.”  Moses, we are told, was 120 years of age, “his eyes...undimmed and his vigor unabated” when he died. His successor, Joshua, “was filled with the spirit of wisdom, since Moses had laid his hands upon him; and so the Israelites gave him their obedience, thus carrying out the Lord’s command to Moses.”

The covenant of the Lord is passed on from one generation to another. Joshua was filled with wisdom because Moses laid his hands upon him, teaching him all he needed to know and modeling fidelity to the Lord and the Covenant entrusted to him.  Like Moses, each of us has a role to play in carrying out God’s wishes in regard to the New Covenant given to us by Jesus.  Like Moses, we will,or already have, come to the point in our lives where a ministry ended, a part of our mission fulfilled. We may have had to pass our work on to others who continued where we left off and, for sure, moved forward differently than we would have.  Such experiences can be very joyous for us and for them or they can be filled with pain, sorrow, anger and bitterness.  The questions are: did we do our best to carry out the mission given to us? Did we “lay our hands upon others,” that is, did we in instruct others in the ways of the Lord concerning a particular mission or ministry? That mission is to follow the Lord within the vocation of marriage or religious life or the priesthood, or the single lifestyle. Our ministry is that of parenthood, building a strong, happy, healthy, God-centered family; or that of building a strong, faith-filled, loving community as religious and a vibrant ministry of helping others in  need; as priests, leading a parish to Jesus, giving youngsters a fundamental understanding of the faith and strengthening the faith of the youth of the parish; as a single person, passing to future generations their faith, expertise, and commitment to making the world a better place according to the Gospels. 

As we come to an end of any ministry, any mission, are we able to let go and bless those who follow us? When it is clear, as it was for Moses, that we are not going to enter “the promised land” looming in front of those who take our places in the family, at work, in the parish, in religious life,  are we ready to let go gracefully?