Yet, the mission of the seventy-two is also essential. And that work is given to all Christians, to me, and to you, and to all. So what is this missionary activity that all of us are to be about? Well, let’s dive into today’s Gospel.
First we heard today how the Lord appointed these seventy-two and sends them, he gives them a mission. The word Missionary comes from the latin word “missio” – which means to send. You and I are missionaries—we are “sent out” by Jesus. Our identity comes from him, the purpose of our life isn’t something that we just make up ourselves. Our purpose is received from God. And we are most fulfilled when we engage in that purpose, rather than our own plans.
Secondly, he sent them out ahead to all the places he intended to visit to prepare the towns to meet him. We are sent as missionaries for the same purpose: to prepare souls for meeting Christ. For most of us, the first missionaries in our own lives were our parents. The work they did brought us to Jesus. We learned to know him, love him, and serve him, we encountered him in the sacraments and in prayer through our parents missionary work in the home.
Or for some of us, we encountered Christ through the missionary activity of good Christians engaged in the works of mercy—they attracted us to Jesus through their good works; or we met Christ because of a particularly powerful sermon or someone sat down with us and explained the scriptures to us at a bible study.
Having encountered Christ, it is so important that we go out to prepare others to meet him. For how else will the Gospel continue to be transmitted? Within his first few weeks as Pope, Pope Francis said, “When the Church becomes closed up on itself it gets sick.” If we aren’t “going out” into foreign lands, foreign places, outside the walls of our church, we will stagnate.
So again, not only priests and bishops and religious have been sent out, but every baptized member of the Church is called to this missionary activity. But, where are we being sent? Certainly into the lives of family members who have fallen away from the Church. Certainly into the lives of coworkers, who perhaps practice no faith. We are sent into the public world of supermarkets and gas stations and restaurants and baseball parks. 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 is a powerful witness when a family prayers together in public.
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.
At our parish visioning meeting last weekend, it became clear that one of our shared concerns is mass attendance. Where will the next generation of parishioners of St. Ignatius of Antioch parish if not, out there. The harvest is abundant, and we are those few laborers who the Lord has sent to gather in his harvest.
Likely, there is already a person in our life that the Lord wants us to reach out to. So, who is the person to whom the Lord is sending me? Who is the person he wants me to teach to pray, to answer their questions about the Church, a family member perhaps who has been away from the sacraments of reconciliation and eucharist for too many years?
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.
Think of how husbands and wives work together in forming their children in the faith. Husbands and wives supporting each other in prayer, t educating their children in the faith, bouncing ideas off of each other on how to witness to other families. Husbands and wives challenging each other to be more faithful to prayer and acts of charity.
Whatever work the Lord has for us as a parish, we can be sure, that he is asking us to work together, to support each other, and pray for each other.
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.
This is certainly a call to prayer, to cultivate the interior life: for where else do we really learn how to love God and to trust God? Saints up and down the centuries have given witness to the miraculous things that can occur when we trust God.
Take no money bag, sack or sandals is also a call to Gospel Poverty and austerity. Why was st. francis such a powerful instrument of the Gospel? People saw his radical faith through his radical trust that the Lord would provide for him. Austerity and simplicity shows non-believers that the Lord Jesus is worth trusting in—that we are serious about our faith—that we believe that when we trust in the Lord Jesus and rely on the grace of God, miracles occur.
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.
Particularly in light of our parish visioning meeting, we do well to consider how we, members of St. Ignatius of Antioch parish are being sent out as healers in our community. Who are the wounded souls we’ve been sent out to bring the healing of Christ to?
Let us pray for one another, and ask the master of the harvest to give us courage, fidelity, zeal, and insight, in this most important missionary work of ours, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.
No comments:
Post a Comment