14th Sunday in Ordinary Time (C)

Is 66:10-14c
Ps 66:1-3, 4-5, 6-7, 16, 20
Gal 6:14-18
Lk 10:1-12, 17-20

In his first Rule for the Franciscan Order, St. Francis of Assisi urged his brothers who wished to be missionaries to—in his words—"avoid quarrels or disputes and be subject to every human creature for God’s sake." The friars were to be men of peace as they fulfilled Franci's' wish to "proclaim the word of God openly." That Franciscan style of mission continues today, as we friars seek to discover where God is at work in different human cultures and in other religious traditions around the world. Today, most contemporary missionaries make a similar effort to look, listen and learn from the people with whom they share the Good News.

In today's Gospel, Jesus sends out 72 disciples on mission. He urges them to bring a message of peace as they announce that the Kingdom of God is at hand.

We can take a cue as evangelizers in the world today from Christ as St. Francis did. Even if we're not formal missionaries, we're sent out from each Eucharist into the world. We carry a message of peace. Let's seek the good wherever God has planted it. Let's try to learn from those who are different from us, respecting their culture and sincere beliefs, even as we announce the Kingdom.

Scripture:

•…as a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you; (Isaiah 10:13)

•Blessed be God who refused me not my prayer or his kindness! (Psalm 66:20)

•…through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. (Galatians 6:14)

•…cure the sick in it and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God is at hand for you.’ (Luke 10:9)

Reflection:

•Have you ever received God’s comfort?

•How is the world crucified?

•Where do you see “the Kingdom of God at hand for you”?

The Eucharist is the silence of God, the weakness of God.
To reduce himself to bread while the world is so noisy, so agitated, so confused.
It is as if the world and the Eucharist are walking in opposite directions. And they seem to be getting further and further away from one another.
One has to be courageous not to let oneself be carried away by the world’s march; one needs faith and will-power to go cross-current toward the Eucharist, to stop, to be silent, to worship. And one needs really strong faith to understand the impotence and defeat which the Eucharist represents and which is today what the impotence and defeat of Calvary was yesterday.
And yet this powerless Jesus, nailed down and annihilated, is the God of the Impossible, Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end…