XIV Sunday in OT:[C]: Is 66:10-14; Gal 6:14-18; Lk 10:1-12, 17-20

XIV Sunday in OT:[C]: Is 66:10-14; Gal 6:14-18; Lk 10:1-12, 17-20

Exegesis:  Luke’s Gospel has two stories of Jesus sending out his followers to go and spread the Good News. In chapter 9 Jesus sends the Twelve apostles and in chapter 10 he sends seventy-two disciples. Matthew’s Gospel has only one: the sending of the Twelve. Scholars believe that Luke’s story of the sending out of the Seventy-two is his way of emphasizing the universal scope of the message of Christ. The mission of the Twelve, according to Matthew, was limited to “the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matthew 10:6). The mission of the Seventy-two has no such limitation. According to Jewish tradition there are twelve tribes of Israel and seventy-two nations of the earth. The sending of the seventy-two disciples, therefore, symbolises the sending of the message of Christ to the whole world.

Event: A preacher was speaking at an open-air crusade in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Billy Graham was to speak the following night. But he arrived a day early. He came unannounced and sat on the grass with the crowd. In front of him sat an elderly gentleman who seemed to be listening attentively to the preaching. When the call came for people to come forward and make a commitment to the Lord, the gentleman did not move. Dr Graham tapped the man on the shoulder and asked, “Would you like to accept Christ? I’ll be glad to walk down with you if you want to.” The old man looked him up and down, shook his head and said, “No, I think I’ll just wait till the big gun shows up tomorrow night.” In the thinking of this man and in the thinking of many people, winning souls for Christ is something that should be reserved for the “big guns.” Today’s gospel story, however, shows us that mission is for everyone, big guns and little shots alike, the clergy as well as the laity.

Christian tradition identifies the Twelve apostles with ordained ministry in the church. When at the Last Supper Jesus commissioned his followers to “do this in memory of me” he was addressing the Twelve, the clergy. If this is so, then the Seventy-two who are sent out on mission in today’s gospel must be understood as lay people. Today’s gospel, therefore, is the commissioning of lay ministry. This way we can read the two missions in the Gospel of Luke, the mission of the Twelve and the mission of the Seventy-two, as the mission of the clergy and the mission of the laity. By including the two accounts Luke, unlike Matthew, is saying, therefore, that mission is not only for the clergy, mission is not only for the “big guns,” mission is for us all, ordained and non-ordained followers of Christ alike.

What is the reason for lay involvement in the spreading of the gospel?  “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.” (Luke 10:2). This is as true today as it was in the days of Jesus. What roles are the laity supposed to play in fulfilling the mission of Christ? The role of the laity is twofold: “Therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest” (verse 2), i.e. prayer, and “Go on your way. See, I am sending you” (verse 3), i.e. active involvement. It is not a question of doing either the one or the other. Every Christian is called to participate in the spreading of the message of Christ through a commitment to prayer and a commitment to action. Pray as if everything depends on God, work as if everything depends on you. Jesus goes on to detail the disposition we should bring to the work of evangelization: a spirit of meekness and vulnerability, a spirit of politeness and adaptability to the changing and challenging local situations in which we find ourselves in the course of mission work.

Joke:  A man who is said to be Christian, full of tattoos, seemed to be good looking but without prayer and charity, died and reached at the pearly gate.  St. Peter at the pearly gate got confused of his situation went and asked God, what to do. Let him in or not. God said we are always forgiving. Let him in. When St. Peter reached back to let him in, he could not see the man and even the pearly gate. Oh God, he has stolen the gate.

Life Messages: 1) We need to continue the preaching mission: Just as Jesus, in today’s gospel, gave instructions to the seventy-two missionaries, he also gives each one of us a mission to carry out. As faithful Christians, we should attract others to our faith by prayer and leading exemplary lives. 

2)  We need to avoid giving the counter-witness of practicing the “supermarket Catholicism” of our politicians who publicly proclaim their “Catholicism” and yet support abortion, gay marriage, human cloning and experimentation with human embryos. Nor should we be “armchair Catholics,” “cafeteria Catholics” or “Sunday Catholics” who bear counter-witness to Christ through our lives.  

3) Let us start preaching the gospel in our families by leading exemplary Christian lives, and family prayer.

Introduction: Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Message: Let us boast of nothing but the cross of Christ.  Through it his grace and power are made known to his servants.  Tremendous deeds shall be performed in his name: the reign of God is proclaimed, peace is given as gift, and the forces of sin are overcome.

Saints and Events in this week:  9-Tuesday-Saint Augustine Zhao Rong, priest, and companions, martyrs; 11-Thursday-Saint Benedict, abbot; 13-Saturday-Saint Henry