Our Gospel over the next three weeks is taken from the tenth
Chapter of Luke’s gospel, the beginning of which we hear today with the sending
out of the seventy-two disciples. Jesus,
of course, gathered 12 men to be his most intimate disciples, to whom he gave
the apostolic mission, but we heard today that he sent out another 72 to do some very
important work. The Bishops of the
Church continue the Apostolic ministry given to the 12, but the work given to
the seventy-two is work that all Christians, you and me, and all of the Church
are to be about. So there are several lessons for all of us today.
First we heard today how the Lord appointed these seventy two
and sends them ahead of him in pairs to every town and place he intended to
visit. The first lesson? We are a missionary Church. The word
Missionary comes from the latin word “missio” – which means to send. You and are called to be missionaries—we are “sent
out” by Jesus.
Jesus came to gather people to Himself, and so he sends us
out to gather others to Him. One of our
great concerns as Christians is bringing others to Christ.
Why is this important?
Within his first few weeks as Pope, said, “When the Church becomes
closed up on itself it gets sick.” If we
aren’t “going out” into foreign lands, we will stagnate.
Going out is not just for priests and bishops, but every
baptized member of the Church is called to this missionary activity. Where are you, sitting in the pews being sent? Certainly you are being sent into the lives
of family members who have fallen away from the Church. You are being sent into the lives of your
coworkers, who perhaps practice no faith.
The members of our parish youth group are being sent these
week into Appalachia, and to witness to the Gospel by their service and by
their good example.
We are sent into the public world of supermarkets and gas
stations and restaurants and baseball parks, also to give witness by what we
say and do. Whenever I go to restaurants
I’m always looking to see if people pray before meals. Not only is it important for us to give
thanks before meals, but it also gives good public witness.
Our faith is not just a private matter, as Jesus teaches
today, the very nature of the Church is to be sent into other people’s lives to
bring them to Him. We have cause to reflect today, is there a person in my
life, that Jesus wants me to bring to Him, by teaching them how to pray, by
answering their questions about the Church, a family member perhaps who needs
to be challenged to go to confession.
It sounds like hard work.
And it is! But notice that Jesus sends the disciples two-by-two. From the beginning, the work of the Church is
always done in a communitarian way. We support
each other. We pray for one
another. We encourage one another in
this holy work.
One of the strongest examples of the communal nature of our
holy work is how husbands and wives are partners in forming their children in the
faith. Husbands and wives supporting
each other in prayer, they support each other in educating their children in
the faith, they bounce ideas off of each
other on how to witness to other families, and they challenge each other to be
more faithful to prayer and acts of charity.
Again, the Christian faith moves us out of our isolated
worlds, into a community of believers.
We are so much more effective when we are working together, united in
faith and charity.
Next, the Lord says that “the harvest is abundant but the
laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his
harvest.” The Lord is teaching us to
pray for each other, that the focus of our labors might not be for our own
pursuits, but for the Lord.
I think he is also teaching us to pray for vocations. Fr. Lanning showed me a booklet put together
for the Parish’s 90th anniversary, in it is listed a number of sons
and daughters of the parish who have become priests and consecrated
religious. Vocations are a fruit of
prayer.
I know of a parish, almost 150 years old that never had a
vocation to the priesthood. The pastor
instituted a weekly 24 hour period of adoration of the Eucharist, and one of
the things he asked the people to pray for were vocations. Within a year or so, a young man of the
parish entered the seminary. The parish,
was my home parish, the vocation, was mine.
I truly believe I was able to hear the call to the priesthood because of
the help of the prayers of the faithful people of my home parish. And I know another young man who is planning
on entering seminary next year.
My last parish, Saint Columbkille, hadn’t had a vocation in
decades. Yet, within a year of opening
our perpetual adoration chapel: we have a young lady who is discerning entrance
to the Franciscan sisters, and a young man discerning entrance to the seminary
here in Cleveland.
Praying for laborers should be a normal and common petition
in our prayer lives.
The Lord gives another instruction to the seventy-two. “Do not carry
a money bag, a sack, or sandals”.
Here the Lord stresses the importance of learning to rely on God and of
spiritual poverty. Poverty and
simplicity of life are essential to the success of the Church’s missionary
work. Go back to the beginning, Jesus
himself was the one who had no place to lay his head, who said, “sell all that
you have and give to the poor if you wish to be perfect, and come and follow
me.”
Saints up and down the centuries have given witness to the
power of Poverty. Saint Anthony who went
into the desert, saint Benedict who engaged in radical poverty, saint john Chrysostom
who amongst the affluence and sophistication of Constantinople lived a life of
austerity and poverty. The same was true
of francis and clare who launched Franciscan movement, the same is true of
dominic, and Ignatius of Loyola founder of the Jesuits, the same is true of
mother Theresa of Calcutta.
There is something about the life of poverty and simplicity
that witnesses to people that you are serious about the faith—that when we rely
on the grace of God, miracles occur. When we abandon building up our own little
kingdoms of security and power and practice a more radical simplicity, god’s
power can become unleashed in our community in a more radical way.
Pope Francis is really challenging the Church, particularly
the cardinals and bishops and priests, to not live fancy, luxurious lives. Because, again, transformative power for the
Church is unleashed where there is radical trust and dependence on God.
Even amidst the great artistic patrimony of the Vatican, we are seeing how Pope Francis is leading the
way in Gospel simplicity.
Finally, we hear how when the seventy-two enter these towns, they
are to cure the sick and proclaim that the kingdom of God is at hand.
Jesus was a healer.
The word savior, literally means, the one who brings health. We are to bring healing to the sick. The physically sick are to know our help, and
also those who are psychologically sick, the addict, the grieving, the
depressed, the lonely. To be attentive
to the lonely widow who lives next door is an act of love.
For, Christianity in the end is a healing ministry: to bring
the spiritually sick health of soul, to bring light to those in darkness, to
bring the fallen sinner to the fount of the Lord’s healing mercy, to bring the
comfort of God’s truth to the doubting and despairing.
May the Eucharist we celebrate today assist us in living out
that missionary call to announce the kingdom of God is at hand, for the glory
of God and salvation of souls.
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