5th Week of Easter 2022 - Friday - Chosen and Sent

 In the readings today we have a lot of choosing and sending. Our Lord tells the apostles in the Gospel: “It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain.” And in the first reading from the Acts of the Apostles, “the Apostles and presbyters, in agreement with the whole Church, decided to choose representatives and to send them”

Tomorrow morning at the Cathedral, our own bishop will choose to ordain 3 new priests and send them out to different corners of the diocese for the work of the Gospel, to be both his representative and the representative of the Lord Jesus.

It’s not just bishops and priests who are chosen and sent. Every Catholic is chosen and sent. You have been chosen and sent. This is evidenced in our sacramental life.

In baptism, you were chosen, you were called by name, you were given the life of grace, you were given faith. No Catholic is Catholic by accident. God has chosen every member of the baptized. He knows you, he’s called you, you belong to Him, the sheep of his flock.

We can be sure we’ve been chosen because God continues to care for us.  He chooses us every time he feeds us with the bread of life—the body and blood of his son, who chose to suffer for each and every one of us. He chose to bear my sins, your sins. He chose to redeem us, when he didn’t have to.

He chose us. And he sends us. At every Mass we are reminded by this. Ite Missa Est. Go, you are sent. The Mass is ended Go into the world to announce the Gospel of the Lord. Go, glorify the Lord by your life. Go, multiply those talents. Go, bear fruit that will last. Go, strengthened by the Eucharist, to evangelize and suffer hardships for the kingdom, go and love your enemy and love your neighbor, go and make disciples teaching them all that I’ve commanded, go and baptize.

We get these reminders in the Church’s liturgy, some of us every day. So why do we act as if others are chosen, but not us? Others are sent, but not us? What more do we want, what more do we need to finally possess the conviction that God chose us and God sends us for the work of the Gospel for the Glory of God and salvation of souls.

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For Pope Francis and Bishop Malesic, that they may have the strength to govern wisely the flock entrusted to them by the Good Shepherd and for an increase in vocations to the ordained priesthood, and that our priests may serve the Church with the love and devotion of the Good Shepherd.

For the new priests being ordained this year, may they be ever faithful to their calling.

That our government leaders will use their authority to protect the dignity of human life and the well-being of the vulnerable, especially the unborn.  

That during this month of May, Christians may turn to Mary, Mother of the Church, seeking her aid and imploring her intercession with increased and fervent devotion, especially by praying the Holy Rosary. 

For deliverance from all evil and all temptation: for those under the influence of drug abuse, addiction, insanity, occultism, atheism, sexual perversion, and any spiritual evils which degrade the human person.

That all of our beloved dead and all the souls in purgatory may come to the glory of the Resurrection.

O God, who know that our life in this present age is subject to suffering and need, hear the prayers of those who cry to you and receive the prayers of those who believe in you. Through Christ our Lord.