Ite, missa est
(Go forth, it is sent)
Every Mass ends the same way — not with explanation, not with applause, not with reassurance, but with a command.
Go.
The Church does not dismiss us because the work is finished, but because it has begun. What was received at the altar must now be carried into the world: truth into confusion, grace into weakness, charity into need, vigilance into darkness.
This book ends the same way.
What you have read was not written to linger in the mind as sentiment, nor to remain safely bound between covers. It was written to be lived. To be tested. To be obeyed. To be forgotten only because it has been absorbed into habit and conscience.
If these pages have stirred discomfort, that is not a failure.
If they have provoked examination, that is grace at work.
If they have called you to confession, to vigilance, to charity, to sacrifice — then they have done exactly what they were meant to do.
Nothing here replaces the sacraments.
Nothing here stands apart from the Church.
Nothing here ends with itself.
The Christian life does not conclude with insight, but with fidelity.
So now the dismissal is spoken.
Go back to your duties.
Go back to your family.
Go back to the poor entrusted to you.
Go back to the confessional, the altar, the watchtower of your soul.
Go back bearing what you have received — not as argument, but as witness.
And remember this above all:
You are not sent because you are ready.
You are sent because God is faithful.
Ite, missa est.