The Mission Abbie Creed   © Copyright 2025 by Abbie Creed

Photo by Liana S on Unsplash

Six weeks ago, when I fell and injured my leg, I needed home therapy and a bit of help doing daily chores and preparing meals. Donna came on the scene to assist me. She was an older woman who had worked caring for others all her life. She was retired but was willing to do short term jobs. And she was affordable! For the next six weeks between chores, we talked about everything from soup to nuts, including religion.

Donna is a staunch Baptist, and I am a staunch Catholic but during our conversations we each discovered something about ourselves and our upbringing in our very different faith traditions. Donna is a cradle Baptist, where Jesus Christ was predominately the main topic for her studies. I am a cradle Catholic. However, I learned that God created all things good and that he kept a list of the bad things that we did and that at the end of time I would have to make an accounting. for them.

In the early grades, I learned that God made me to know him, to love him, to serve him in this world, and be happy with him in the next. I learned that the Commandments, the Beatitudes and Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy were given to me as guidelines to follow. I knew for sure that I was doomed to spend some time in purgatory for the times that I failed to follow these guidelines. I don’t remember thinking about the Holy Spirit, only that it was part of the Holy Trinity.

Donna was brought up reading the Bible, the ability to quote Scripture and that Jesus Christ was her personal savior. She doesn’t have to worry about being saved, she already is!

Growing up, Catholics were not to read the Bible. I guess for fear that we might mis-interpret it. As a teenager and young married adult, I attended Mass on Sunday, went to Confession on occasion, said the Rosary occasionally and prayed every night. To me, that was what was required of Catholics in good standing. I also was a member of the Rosary Altar Sodality, a young women’s organization.

After six weeks sharing our beliefs, Donna and I have become good friends and feel that our time together brought out the best in both of us and an understanding that Faith is what we believe, belief in God, ourselves and in one another. Religion is the choice we make where we can express and live what we believe and where we can best “Walk the Talk.”

My husband and I were both Catholics in good standing. We married in the Catholic church, both families were practicing Catholics. Dan’s brother was a Catholic priest and had the privilege of officiating at our wedding. We had three priests officiating and several in attendance. We had a big Catholic wedding!

In 1962, the second Vatican Council took place and with it came many changes both for the Catholic community and for me and my family. Shortly after the council began, our parish had a weeklong Mission. A Mission in the Catholic church is somewhat like a Revival in the Protestant church. One of the nights of the Mission was for women only. I was anxious to attend, either because Dan took care of the six kids for several hours and I was off the hook, or because I truly was interested. It probably was a little of both.

I have no idea what the priest said or the topic he was on but for the first time in my 31 years, after having six children, everything that I had done out of habit, began to make sense to me. Attending Mass on Sunday became a privilege and not an obligation. Caring for my children became a privilege not just the duty of a good mother. The teachings of Vatican 11 and my desire to be open to the workings of the Spirit in my own everyday life, took root. It also helped that my husband Dan, loved the Vatican changes too, and they became the topic of many of our private conversations.

My understanding and belief in the God of my childhood rapidly began to change. Though I had had 13 years of Catholic education I still had not shed the impression that I had to somehow earn salvation. In High School, I struggled with the idea that everything that happens is God’s will. I could not make myself believe that an all-loving God would will my mother to die, leaving a four-day old baby and eight other children under eighteen, without a mother. Then my father died when I was eleven years old and somehow that added to the struggle. Over time, I came to grips with it, after realizing that God was with me all the way. Our family lived together under the care of our aunt and uncle. We were all loved and cared for. We lived a somewhat normal life, none of us were in trouble with the law and we always tried to stay close as siblings.

Back to the Mission It changed my thinking. All of life became a privilege and I came to realize that God loved me, unconditionally, no strings attached, and that he was ready to forgive any shortcomings that I may have, was so freeing for me. Also, prayer took on a new meaning. Once when I was changing a diaper for a crying baby who had come down with measles when all six children were recovering from chicken pox, I told a priest friend, through my tears, that I couldn’t even pray, because I was so tired. I will never forget his response, “Honey, what you are doing is a prayer.” Since then, each morning I learned to say, “Lord, I offer you this day, all I think and do and say and ask you to be with me all day.”:

After Vatican 11, the Catholic School Board voted to drop the first three grades of school. That decision necessitated lay people taking over the religious instruction of the first graders. The plan was to drop the first grade and the others in the following two years. When I received a call asking me to teach first graders, I responded because my youngest son would be one of the children involved in the second year. I met Clara, who became my best friend. She too had received a call. We were required to take classes necessary to do the job. We were hooked! For seven years we attended night classes, so we could teach in the parish school. Each of us had five boys, making us highly qualified for the job which I did for the next. 34 years before retirement.

That Mission had a great effect on my life, both then and now. Called to teach children after mine were all in school was certainly not on my agenda but became a life-changing experience that I still treasure so much today.

My understanding and knowledge of God also changed dramatically, from the God keeping records to a loving God, who forgives all my shortcomings right now, so I could go and try to sin no more. Those seven years of classes brought me to a whole new understanding of living life and what my mission or commission calls me to do .

After teaching and coordinating parish programs, I continue to do volunteer work in the parish. At 95 years of age, I still find it a privilege to be asked to serve in any way I am able. Donna, my care giver, is such a joy-filled Christ-like person, is active in her church, and a true witness of one who is “walking the talk.“ We get together to have lunch and talk about how God is active today in and through us and the people we meet daily. God is truly alive, in and through all his followers and the Spirit is a’movin!