8 July 2015
Wednesday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time
In yesterday’s Gospel Jesus spoke of mission, that is, the invitation he offers apostles to co-operate with him in the work the Father gives him to accomplish. In today’s Gospel he spells out instructions for me, invited to be a present-day apostle, on how to accomplish our mission together.
First of all, I must be attached to him who sends me, yet remains with me. I do this through communication: prayer with him, sacrifice for him. In turn, he gives me the know-how and strength to accomplish what he wants done, which is, bringing others to him. He fixes an order of priority on his agenda list. First of all: “Go to the lost sheep.”
Who are these “lost sheep” in my world today? They could be people I know personally. But they could also be people I will never know in this life. We’ll meet in the world to come because Jesus has tied me to them with an apostolic bond: bewildered young people seeped in the culture of relativism; men and women caught up in our age of materialism; makers and distributors of porn; terrorists, abortionists, Christian persecutors; compromised Catholic politicians and educators, and hopefully many more besides.