Called to Make the Kingdom a Reality

 
The Kingdom of God is at Hand

 
Isiah 66:10-14c
Galatians 6:14-18
Luke 10:1-12, 17-20 or Lk 10:1-9

At that time the Lord appointed seventy-two others whom he sent ahead of him in pairs to every town and place he intended to visit.
—Luke 10:1

When we think about the great saints of our Catholic tradition, we realize that they very often come in pairs: Paul and Barnabas, Perpetua and Felicity, Benedict and Scholastica, Francis and Clare of Assisi, Vincent de Paul and Louise de Marillac, to name only a few examples. Even within my own Salvatorian community, we often see our founder, Blessed Francis Jordan, paired with Blessed Mary of the Apostles (of the Salvatorian Sisters). To the list of martyrs and consecrated religious women and men, we can also add married couples like Isidore the Farmer and Maria or Louis and Zelie Martin (the parents of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux) — husbands and wives who proclaimed and lived their faith through the daily witness of their marriage vows and family commitments.

In this Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus sends out seventy-two of his disciples in pairs to “every town and place he intended to visit.” These disciples were to let the local communities know that Jesus and the Apostles were on their way. They were being asked to evangelize — to announce the “Good News” that Jesus was coming. (Remember that our word “evangelize” comes from the Greek word evangelion, which originally meant a joyful announcement — good news — that a king was coming to visit or that a military battle had been won.) And the message, the evangelion, that Jesus had instructed the disciples to proclaim was simple: “The Kingdom of God is at hand for you.” Here. Now.

The disciples’ journey and their announcement of the coming of the Kingdom — and of the King himself — was the action. But what was bubbling beneath the surface, within the hearts and souls of those early evangelizers? It was their faith in and relationship with Jesus and with one another.

When Jesus sent out those pairs of disciples as “laborers for his harvest,” he wanted them to work together, to share their faith, support and encourage one another when the journey was difficult, and to witness to the fact that to be a disciple of Jesus calls for collaboration and community. This is why we see so many saints — including those listed above — working collaboratively to fulfill their mission. This Gospel passage reminds us that living our faith with integrity means that we express what is going on in the depths of our hearts and souls in and through our words and actions. We can’t live out our faith or exercise our ministries within a vacuum.

In this passage, we also hear Jesus teaching an important lesson in relationships by urging the disciples to pay attention to the response of the people they were visiting. Yes, they were to share their message about the coming of the Kingdom, but he also wanted them to watch and listen —to be in relationship with the people they visited, to be sensitive to how the Good News was being received and to act accordingly. Keeping this in mind not only helps to be sure that the Gospel is being proclaimed effectively, but it also allows us to be sensitive to the “signs of the times” and the needs of the communities we are called to serve.

In the end, the mission of the disciples was to proclaim the faith they held within their hearts and invite others — all others — to join them in building up God’s Kingdom as faithful disciples. Faith and action came together in relationships — the communion and community of the Kingdom of God. The Gospel demands that we, as Christians — collaborating disciples proclaiming our interior faith through our public works of mercy and justice — make ourselves available for the task of making the Kingdom a reality within our families, parishes, communities, and country.

Bro. Silas Henderson, SDS
 

PRAYER

O God, who have sent the power of the Gospel
like leaven in the world,
grant that your faithful,
whom you have called to live amid the world and its affairs,
may be fervent with the Christian spirit
and, through the tasks they carry out in this present life
may constantly build up your Kingdom.
Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

(Adapted from the “Collect for the Ritual Mass: For the Laity” in The Roman Missal)

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