|
Take It or Leave It
Luke 9: 1-6
Petition: Lord, help me to rely on your grace and not on worldly things. 1. The Mission Christ sends out his apostles to preach the good news with inadequate supplies. They are charged to trust in Providence. Jesus shrinks their suitcases to practically nothing. How could they touch people? Like St. Paul they were able to understand that Jesus was guiding their steps from a discreet distance: I consider all as loss for the surpassing knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord (Philippians 3:8). Jesus gave them restrictions so as to teach them that the strength in getting fruits lies in their love for him rather than career management to boost self-esteem among their peers. Do I carry this same conviction in the home, in the office or running the errands? Am I willing to go two miles if the local Church community presses me into service for one mile? 2. Detached from All Things Christ warns us about hoarding possessions, not so much by what he says, but by what he does. He doesn’t send out his friends like sheep among wolves in order to retire to a comfortable sofa all weekend long. Jesus backs up his teachings of apostolic success by giving good example first. He is born in a musty cave without the luxuries of a comfortable inn. His first bed was an animal feeder. During his first apostolic success at the age of twelve, he was pulled away by his parents intimating to him that his timing was off. He sent Peter to pull coins out of a fish’s mouth since he had nothing to pay the tax with. He allowed simple things like a woman at a well, or a funeral march in a village, to become the object of worldwide memory in ages to come, by countless followers. He was laid in someone else’s grave. Material welfare simply cannot obtain what the Lord is sending us to accomplish! 3. A Free Choice Jesus didn’t make the disciples go off on a survival camp. Nevertheless, the harder the conditions were, the more attraction they felt to be involved. This seems to be a mysterious reality that surrounds any divinely inspired apostolate or task that Christians undertake. These Galilean fishermen seemed to freely accept an unknown trade. Jesus gave them power and authority. This is what motivated them. The apostles experienced a hidden treasure that filled them with so much enthusiasm that they sold everything so as to get hold of this treasure and share it. This treasure is Christ. There seems to have been a friendly connection established between Christ and his apostles, as if they struck gold together, because he only explained the difficult and demanding mission in one brief paragraph. The gospel says, Then they set out and went from village to village.... It didn’t take the apostles long in deciding what they wanted to do, for they carried a treasure within their vessels of clay, which needed to spread far and wide. Conversation with Christ: Lord Jesus, as wonderful as material things are, they do not amount to anything in comparison with possessing you and teaching others about you. See the efforts I so intensely perform for your sake and bless them. Lord, help me, as you helped St. Paul, to continue fighting for a heavenly crown that doesn’t fade or rust. Resolution: Today I will find a moment to make a visit to the Blessed Sacrament and pray earnestly for the missionary intentions of the Holy Father for this month. |
|
||
| Other Articles by Monsignor Dennis Clark, Ph.D. Printer Friendly Version |
||
| We Are Only Temporary Residents | ||
Ezr 9:5-9 / Lk 9:1-6
There's an interesting question going around which is worth pondering: Where were you when your parents were children? The answer is obvious and simple: We were nowhere. We simply WEREN'T. Intellectually, the answer is obvious, but it's hard for us to grasp at a feeling level: There was a time, not so long ago, when I simply wasn't and never had been, when nobody had ever thought of me or knew my name or even knew that I might be coming. That does put things in perspective!
Having been around for quite a few years now, we tend to take a lot for granted. We grow accustomed to "MY body, MY talents, MY brain, MY house, MY kids, MY investments," and we feel as if they really belong to us. And sometimes we act almost as if we thought we gave them to ourselves. That's an illusion, as any one of life's fateful turns can make clear in a moment.
The fact is that everything we have, including our life, is a gift from God that we didn't earn. And we have it, not because of any merit on our part, but simply because God is generous. When we get clear about that, as Ezra was in today's Old Testament reading, we know what we need to do. We need to give thanks, over and over, and not just in words but in deeds.
So what are the deeds of a thankful heart? Compassion, forgiveness, and generosity: sharing what we have with others as open-handedly as God shares with us. In doing that, we become like God, and when our time here is ended, we will know the way home to Him.