The Good News Goes Out
Jesus sends the Twelve
Announcements for July 10, 2021:
The Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel is just one week away! Join us on Sunday, July 18th for a procession and parish celebration following the 11:00am Mass. We will grill and have an ice cream truck show up, and all are invited to bring a favorite finger food. Please contact the rectory with any questions.
Please keep Wade Trainor in your prayers -- he will be ordained a deacon today! We will celebrate with Wade tomorrow, when he returns to preach our Sunday Masses.
Our beyond-the-tithe opportunity this month is the diocesan appeal for the Catholic Communication Campaign, Black and Indian Missions, and the Catholic University of America. To learn more about these initiatives or to give online, please visit the Monthly Appeals section of our website.
As always, check out our Parishioner Portal for more announcements.
Dear Saints,
This weekend's Gospel passage recounts Jesus' summoning the Twelve and sending them out two by two.
Saint Matthew relates the same event in his Gospel, which came up in our cycle of readings this week. I preached on it here and here.
Before sending them out, Jesus gives the Apostles instructions in two parts: They are "to take nothing for the journey," and they are to "shake the dust off [their] feet" in testimony against people who do not welcome them.
The first command is complex, but it means at least the following: 1. The disciples must trust totally in God and his providing for them every step of the way; 2. the Twelve must not even appear to be richer as the result of the kingdom work Jesus has commissioned them to do; and 3. they cannot be seen to be in it for themselves.
We can condense this by saying that Jesus sends the disciples off to bring God's love - his totally-for-the-other generosity - to life, and they can do it only by faith.
The second command - to "shake the dust off [their] feet" - impresses on the Twelve the nature of Christ's call. In his sending the Apostles, Jesus is not extending an offer of good advice or suggesting he has a new moral code or religious experience to live by. No, he is proclaiming the coming of God's kingdom. This is an urgent message: the people must ready themselves to receive it or be prepared for the consequences of having rejected it.
Here we should see that the Good News is a summons to God's kingdom way of life. The demands of love are serious, and we must rise to meet them here and now.
If this all sounds massively difficult, that's because it is. Well, no. It's impossible except for the fact that, as we hear in the Gospel, Jesus has the Twelve share in his authority.
Jesus not only pioneers the way of radical self-gift, but by faith he also makes it possible for us. With the power of God's own life of love at work in us and working through us, we too can be messengers of God's healing and restorative rule to the people and places God entrusts to our care.
I love you, my friends, and I look forward to seeing you soon.
Christ's Peace,
Father Daniel
δοῦλος Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ
Preparing for Mass?
Check out this weekend's readings:
The Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
He Sent them out Two by Two
James Tissot, 1886-96