15th Sunday of Ordinary Time

The Twelve whom Jesus had called were the Lord’s disciples, meaning that Jesus was their teacher and they were His students.  In today’s gospel, they become apostles as well, meaning that they were those who were sent.  Jesus had work for them to do and so He sent them out with His authority to do what He had been doing.

In Baptism, we are joined to Jesus and become both the Lord’s disciples and apostles.  Each of us enters into a relationship with the Lord and learns both from Jesus and about Jesus.  We are also apostles, sent by the Lord to continue His work in our world.  At the end of every Mass, having been enlightened by God’s word and nourished with the Body of Christ, we are commanded to go forth, to continue the work of the Lord.

There are three lessons to learn from Jesus’ instructions to the Twelve that will help us to become better disciples and apostles.

Jesus sent the Twelve out “two by two.” The lesson there is that we need to work together – all of us – no one ought to be alone because no one can do it alone.  We all have different gifts and God needs all of them in order for the Church to do her work.  We ought to complement each other, to do what we can, and to let others do what they can.  The possibilities of serving Christ and His Church are many and there is a place for everyone to make a contribution. 

Jesus told the Twelve to take very little with them.  They were to travel light and to be content with where they found themselves.  The lesson there is that we need to trust God for everything.  When God has a work for us to do, God will supply our every need.  When we have many possessions, we run the risk of relying on them, rather than on the Lord.  St. Paul, one of the most powerful apostles in the history of the Church, assures the Ephesian Christians in today’s second reading that God has given us every spiritual gift.  We lack nothing if only we trust God to give it to us.

Jesus instructed the Twelve that they were to do what He had been doing: to preach repentance, to drive out demons and to heal the sick.   Those same works are needed today and they are not limited to the clergy.  When a person speaks to a family member or friend about the need to get a new way of thinking and living, it can be powerful and lead to serious change and growth.  There are so many ways to help others to be set free.  Again, these are but a few works that the Lord asks of all of us, His current apostles in the Church today.

Going to Church on Sunday and offering a prayer or two each day is not enough.  We need to have a relationship with the Lord so that we can hear what He asks of us.  Jesus will send us out to do what He did and to do what the Twelve did.  We will continue the work that has been done for centuries: preaching, helping others to become free and healed through the person of Jesus, alive and active in the Church today.

When we go forth and work together, trusting the Lord for everything, Jesus’ work continues and lives are saved.  We, disciples and apostles of Jesus, are called to this.  May we ask Him for direction and guidance and then beg the Lord for the grace and fortitude to carry it out.

14th Sunday in Ordinary Time

The story in today’s gospel is a sad one.  Jesus has returned to Nazareth and the people there do not have faith in Him.  They have known Him since He was a boy.  They know His family.  They knew Him as the carpenter who worked with Joseph and then was especially solicitous of Mary, His mother, after Joseph’s death.  They had heard reports of His preaching and healing and deliverance ministry and His many followers, but they would not accept Him.  As a result, since they had no faith in Him, He could do little for them.

The same is true for us.  We need to have faith in Jesus.  We need to trust Him and have a relationship with Him in order for Him to be able to work in our lives.  If we don’t work to get to know Jesus through the Scriptures and prayer and especially in the sacraments, we are the same as those in Nazareth who knew Him, but did not believe or trust what He had to say or offer.  We need to have a personal relationship with Jesus based on an abiding trust in Him in order to have Him work in our lives.  The poor example of those from the Lord’s hometown reminds us not to make the same mistake.

We can also learn from the other mistake they made, especially in our dealings with others.  Those in Nazareth did not have faith in Him because they thought they knew Him.  That false sense of familiarity led to a lack of freedom they needed to get to know Him as the Christ, the Anointed of God.  He couldn’t be who He said He was because they mistakenly believed they already knew Him. 

Don’t we do the same thing at times when we presume to know someone and make a judgment based on what we see?  We judge people based on where they are from or what they look like or how they act, especially in our interactions with them.  We don’t take the time to get to know them in any real way because we have already made up our mind and too often we are wrong in our assessment. We don’t give others the benefit of the doubt or put a good interpretation on what we see or hear.  We are too quick to dismiss others.  And like those in Nazareth who did that to Jesus, it is a loss for us. We ought to be open to others, especially to the possibility that there is more than what meets the eye.

A third lesson today’s Scriptures offer is from St. Paul who learned that God uses our weakness and will give us the grace we need to do God’s will, even in the suffering and struggle that comes from our weakness.  We don’t know exactly what Paul was struggling with, but the Lord’s message in response to his prayer was clear.  God would give the grace needed to do what had to be done, but the weakness would remain to show Paul that the strength was from the Lord and not himself.  Paul learned the hard way, which is often the best way, that when he was weak, God would give him strength.  He expressed the same sentiment later in Philippians 4:13, “I can do all things in Him who strengthens me.”  God works the same way in our lives as well.  Weakness can be a good thing when and if we are open to God’s strength, rather than thinking we can do it ourselves.

God’s word today assures us that we will be better disciples if we put our faith in Jesus and refuse to judge others, especially when we base such a judgment on our limited knowledge of others.  And learning that weakness is something God can use will help us to follow the Lord more faithfully as well.  Rather than disappoint the Lord as did those in Nazareth, we can give Him joy by our trusting Him, even we are weak.  When we have faith, the Lord will supply the grace. 

13th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Jesus’ encounter with Jairus and the interruption from the woman who desperately wanted to be healed both teach us how we might approach Jesus in prayer.

We all have fears and while we try to avoid thinking about them, it is good to bring them to the Lord in prayer.  Jairus feared he was going to lose his daughter, so he sought out Jesus.  The sick woman feared she would never get better and so she, too, in a humble, but literal way, also reached out to Jesus.  We do well also to go to Jesus and speak to Him about our fears.

Jairus and the sick woman both had fears, but more importantly, they both had faith.  They trusted Jesus and believed that He could help them.  Jairus was desperate to have Jesus come into his home and touch his daughter.  The sick woman simply wanted to touch the cloak of Jesus, believing that would be enough, and she hoped not to bother Him as she did so.  The two of them remind us that we are not all the same and the ways we go to Jesus are different.  But the Lord is always there waiting for us.  What we need to bring are faith and trust in the Lord.

At the Last Supper, Jesus told the disciples, “I call you my friends” and He says the same to us.  We should not hesitate to go to the Lord with our fears or whatever else we need to share with Him.  Jesus is a friend who loves us intimately and infinitely.  Once we come to know the love He has for us and the burning desire He has for us to speak with Him, we look forward to being with Him in prayer. It is then our fears are healed, our faith is strengthened, and our friend Jesus never fails us.