+ Our gospel passage today is a continuation from last week. Jesus is still resolutely making his way to Jerusalem. He is still determined to
embrace the Cross of Calvary that will save so very many people, including you
and me, if we want it, from eternal separation from God and punishment. He loves us so very much!
While on the way there, today,
Jesus sends out into towns where he
intends to visit on the trip, thirty-six pairs of helpers – whom he asked to courageously go among all kinds of people
and announce that the Kingdom of God is
at hand for them. “He’s coming! Get
ready!” These helpers (these disciples) were to travel very lightly. They were to keep as their main focus their job, the task that Jesus gave them to do. They were to test the waters of
their visitations by announcing peace.
When peace is offered to someone – it pretty much speaks for itself. If a
peaceful man hears the offer, he will accept it gladly and offer it back to
you. If not, there will be a lot of mumbling and even cursing and the offer of
peace will be thrown right back into the face of the giver.
Jesus is actually calling us
to do as these disciples were called: follow
him to Jerusalem, where we will have the privilege of witnessing God’s
tremendous love for his people – by an unprecedented act of forgiveness, reconciliation and setting free
– by means of the Cross. Later he would have us boast of the Cross of Christ as the sure hope of salvation for all
in the world, but also he would have us carry our own crosses, boasting of them
as well; for if we do not carry and boast about our own crosses – then we shall
not share in the glory of the resurrection, the grace of forgiveness, the fullness
of freedom, the fullness of peace forever!
God wants our hearts to
rejoice because we feel so very much loved by him – even as a mother loves her children (I - Isaiah). We are his
children – by baptism – and this is huge – this is our access point to so very
many gifts, the greatest being faith and
charity: belief in Jesus and the ability to love as he did with a love that emanates from the heart of
God the Father himself.
Our greatest joy, our greatest
freedom, then, is the freedom of the
children of God! It is only as free children of God – operating on the
supernatural level of faith and charity -- that we can even begin to understand
how human life both individually and in community, the secular society, ought
to be lived. In this we can see clearly how all natural law is based on and
derivative of supernatural law. It cannot be otherwise. It is very difficult
for a real Christian to live in the world – but no one ever said that it would
be anything other than that. Jesus himself said it quite plainly: the world will hate you and persecute you if
you believe in me and live by my brand of charity! In fact, unless the
world does look askance at us, perhaps we are not as Christian as we ought to
be.
Let
the peace of Christ, then, control our hearts; let the word of Christ dwell in
us richly! And may we be transformed by the renewal of our minds!
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