CBB Interview with Father Michael Mitchell

Father Michael Mitchell, LC received his BA in Theology and MA in Philosophy from the Pontifical University Regina Apostolorum, graduating summa cum laude in 2011. Having studied in Spain, Italy, and the United States, he is fluent in English, Spanish, and Italian. He is chaplain to the apostolate Mission Youth and is the superior of the religious congregation of the Legionaries of Christ in Chicago. He frequently travels to Haiti and Mexico to do missionary work. He also regularly leads retreats and is a spiritual director in the Midwest.

Here is what Father had to say about mercy and his new book I Saw His Face.

PETE: In your new book I Saw His Face: Powerful Moments of Christ’s Mercy you mix Scriptural examples of Christ’s mercy with your own personal experiences. In this Year of Mercy how important is it for people to be able to see these examples?

FATHER MICHAEL MITCHELL: Evangelization is not about sharing ideas, but about sharing a relationship, a lived experience of Christ.  Christ is a real person, not an idea or historical figure.  I believe our work must engage the mind and the heart of each person.  Pope Francis is inviting the Church at every level to show her motherly face, to reach out to the heart of humanity.

Every person wants mercy.  We all want to be forgiven, we all want God to embrace us with his love.  However, I have found that one of the most difficult realities in the spiritual life is the ability to accept mercy and believe in love.  Could God really love me?  Do I deserve his mercy?  We all want it but hesitate to accept it.  So a book about God’s mercy, which shows it in the lives of others and in the gospel I believe is very much needed today.

PETE: What inspired you to write this book?

FATHER MICHAEL MITCHELL: It was grace upon grace, an overflowing of missionary zeal.  The book wrote itself.  I don’t think the disciples who wrote the gospels needed much motivation.  It was a story that just had to be told.  An experience of mercy is unforgettable!  Telling it just happens naturally.

As well, traveling back and forth from the USA to these countries also has given me a broader perspective on life and the Church.  That broader vision naturally found its way into the preaching and writing I had been doing, and little by little into the book.

PETE: Not everyone has the ability to do missionary work in a foreign country. How can people apply the examples your book to their own corners of the world?

FATHER MICHAEL MITCHELL: I always invite missionaries who have traveled with me to bring their mission “home” with them.  Life must be a mission.  This is a Catholic worldview.  Every place and time needs Christ. Our work as disciples of Christ is to be his voice and hands and feet, and above all his heart.

This means I wake up every morning and I ask myself: How can I love Christ and bring him to others today?  This is the question a missionary asks.  Remember, St. Therese the Little Flower never left her convent to go to “mission” lands. But she did become the patron saint of missions!

Pope Francis is asking us to be missionaries of Mercy.  You can do this by first reflecting in prayer with Christ over your own experience of Mercy.  Then pray for that same grace to be poured into the souls of all those you meet.  Share that experience.  Let mercy be in your life what God wants it to be, and God will do the rest.

PETE: What impact has missionary work had on you as a priest?

FATHER MICHAEL MITCHELL: I am not the same person I was when I first pulled on my mission boots and stepped off a plane in Haiti.  I see poor people, immigrants, the sick and dying in a different light.  Christ said that whatever we do to the least of his little ones we do to him.  It isn’t imaginary!  What we do for them is truly done to Christ.  A deep spiritual truth is that Christ is “hidden” in the poor.  Finding him in the poor and experiencing his gaze of love is a gift that leaves you changed forever.

PETE:  Time for my signature ending question. This is a blog about books. What books are currently on your bookshelf to read?

FATHER MICHAEL MITCHELL: I always have quite a stack on my desk!  Right now it is Contemplative Provocations by Fr. Donald Haggerty and its brand new sequel, The Contemplative Hunger.  These are both destined to become classics!  Beyond that, Fr. John Bartunek’s Spring Meditations and the Interior Castle by St Teresa of Avila.

_______________________________________________________________________________