1.Is 66:10-14
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2.Gal 6:14-18
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Gospel: Luke
10:1-12,17-20
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"Are we ready
to be sent?"
What happens when we
apply for job either in government or private companies? the answer is very
clear that when we are writing an application for that particular job we
present our best credentials to the employers as much as we can. We do present
our qualifications for that job in the following manner: that we graduated with
first class, or summa cum laude; that our previous job were like these and we
present known people as our references and referees so that the employers may
be impressed by our curriculum vitae, ( CV). In other words, we present
ourselves that we are the best of all the best.
Likewise, if we are
employers or owners of a certain company and we intend to pirate good personnel
from other companies, we also want to make good proposals to the ones we want
to hire. We say and suggest to them: " I will double your salary, I will
give more benefits. After one year, you will be promoted. " In other
words, we present ourselves that we are the best of all the best.
In our today's gospel
Jesus is quite different. Jesus is asking and hiring too, men to become His
disciples and prospective missionaries of His word. Jesus tells them: "
Come and follow me so that you will be persecuted, so that you will be tried in
court; so that you will live simply and walk humbly, so that you will have
difficult life. If you are very lucky, you will be killed too and you will work
for me not only 8 hours a day but 24 hours a day.
We may ask ourselves
this question, that what do we do when we apply for a job to Jesus Christ? we
do not day: " I am the best, so hire me," but rather we say: " I
am the worst. Make something good out of me." That is why, very few of us
apply for a job with Christ as missionaries of His word because we experience
not pleasure but pressure we could not say:
" We are the best," but rather we say: " We are the worst of
all." We could not announce to all that we are saints but rather sinners.
As we hear in our today's
gospel Jesus sending the seventy-two other disciples to preach His word of
salvation, He also calls each one of us to share in the task of evangelization.
Whatever be our situation and status in life, whether we are parents, teachers,
employees, employers professionals or students, we are also being sent by
Christ to be missionaries of His word of salvation. It wrong to say that
preaching the word belongs exclusively to nuns, priest, religious brothers or
sisters. The evangelii Nuntiandi of Paul VI that the evangelized becomes now
the evangelizers clearly he meant that by virtue of our baptism and
confirmation, we share in the mission of Christ by imitating Him and by
proclaiming through the words of mouth and the deeds of our actions.
Jesus in today's gospel
appointed seventy two and sent them by pair for a mission. Three reasons were
involved in sending them forth in pairs: 1.mutual support; 2) bearing witness
to the truth of their testimony ( Deut 19:15); 3. Living embodiment of the
gospel of peace, ( vv 5-6). The most famous pair in the history of the church
was Paul and Barnabas. Here we get the
impression that the mission of Christ is not a personal endeavor, rather it is
the mission that needs communion and collaboration. The mission of Christ is
the shared mission, it is not the mission to done in loneliness.
The number seventy was
to the Jews symbolic: it was the number of the elders who were chosen to help
Moses with the task of leading and directing the people in the wilderness ( Num
11:16-17, 24, 25); it was the number of the Sanhedrin, the supreme council of
the Jews; furthermore, it was held to be the number of nations in the world.
St. Luke the evangelist was the man with the concept of universalist view and
it may well be that he was thinking of the day when every nation in the world
would know and love his Lord.
Hearing the gospel
today can be compared to people sitting in on a very important business
meeting. It seems we are listening to a sales manager giving orders to his
staff as they get ready to set out on a
new sales campaign. In fact it Jesus preparing His staff of seventy-two for
their first great missionary journey, a kind of sales job. He gave them
instructions which were practical and
specific, but He insisted very much on the kind of behavior that they should
have.
Nevertheless, today we
have to look at this story of sending the seventy from a different perspective,
from the perspective of those being sent(missionaries themselves) rather than
from the perspective of those receiving the message.
First, they are being given an invitation to pray. He said: " Ask the master of the harvest to send
out laborers for his harvest,(v2). Pray as if everything depended on God, work
at it as if everything depended on your contribution, this is simply because
prayer is an invisible connection between us and God; it is unseen conduit of
goodness and grace. When we pray for laborers we never pray to have a greater
number, rather we pray for people to accept and understand that the task is
bigger than we can accomplish.
Second, Jesus urges
them to act with innocence, honesty, never having recourse to trickery or
deceit of any kind, if I want to be a good minister I must always cultivate a
good personal relationship with God. We pray every day, and what we ask God in
our prayers is to be faithful to our calling.
Third, Jesus tells his
disciples he is sending into the mission that they must travel light. Moreover,
they should not be preoccupied with material things. Their priorities should lay in the things of
God. In verse 4 of today's gospel Jesus tells his disciples, "Carry no
purse, no backpacks, no sandals. Surely this is an invitation to depend on the
providence of God. God provides to us laborers through our brothers and sisters
we serve.
Fifth, the disciples
have to perform cures and cast out demons. Jesus further places special
emphasis on the work of curing the sick. In the work of spreading the good
news, this is not an optional task, rather it is an obligation. Someone may
ask: Is health of body necessary for salvation? Is holiness of soul not enough?
There is no way we can preach holiness without wholeness. Thus our mission has
to do with the whole person, body and soul as well.
In one of the Vatican
II documents, there is one document entitled,' Apostolicam Actuostatem no.6
says: " There are innumerable opportunities open to the laity for the
exercise of their apostolate of making the gospel known and men holy. The
witness of Christian lives and good works done in a supernatural spirit have
the power to draw men to belief and to God.
In our gospel Jesus
says: " The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few...." What
can we compare the harvest with?" Today, the harvest consist of:
1. Those people who
have not heard of Christ. According to a statistical survey, out of the six
billion population of the world, 33% of these are Christians and 20% of these
33% are Catholics. Accordingly, 77% of the world population are non-Christians
or uninfluenced by the gospel.
2.Those people who have
heard of Christ but has no opportunity to know Him better.
3.Those people who have
known and heard Christ, baptized and became Christians but they do not practice
what they had learned and received. They relinquished the religion and became
nominal and cafeteria Catholic Christians. Who are they? They are your
neighbors, members of your own family, friends and many more.
Let me end my sharing
with this little story: There was a conversation between Ten thousand Tanzania
shillings and one thousand note Tanzania shillings. After their long life, they
had come to the end of their usefulness and were about to be destroyed. The ten
thousand speaks, " I don't mind. I had a good run. I have been in many
excellent restaurants, five star hotels, casinos and best beaches. I had been
on great vacations. I have seen wonderful theater in my day." Then the ten
thousand asks the one thousand shillings " How about your pilgrim? what
kind of a time have you had?" Down cast, the thousand Tanzania shillings
responded, " Lousy,! I have spent most of my life at the bottom of
collection baskets in Catholic churches," We actually laugh at this story,
but the laugh is on us. The question for meditation in this story is that,
where do we invest much? where do we put our highest expectations? Do we put
our highest expectations to spritual life or material things?
0 Response to "HOMILY FOR THE 14th SUNDAY OF YEAR C ORDINARY TIME"
Chapisha Maoni