Sent: A community of Hope: The Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time 2024

Sent: A community of Hope:

The Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time 2024 

July 14, 2024

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Amos 7:12-15; Psalm 85; Ephesians 1:3-14; Mark 6:7-13

 

Jesus sends out his disciples in twos so that they had both safety and companionship. They were instructed to continue his mission of bringing peace, justice, and love to the world. To Jesus, they represented the universal community of hope. They brought the good news the in the person of Jesus that God’s rightness has dawned decisively in time and the fulfillment of God’s universe can begin. By sending them two by two, each disciple would be able to reflect with the other the unfolding events of God’s reign. From the very beginning, each disciple was to converse and reflect together.

 

From the start, a hallmark of the Church’s Synod was the “conversation in the Spirit.” The process of listening and dialogue builds communion and encourages participation in the mission of Jesus. I often wondered how the disciples preached when they went from town to town. My guess is that they did not make strong declarative statements, impose absolute judgments, or show unwillingness to listen. My best guess is that they were able to converse easily with the people and to share their experience of the power of God through Jesus. They would have listened and spoken in a way that others were interested in hearing from them. They did not lord it over with words or speak assertively, and they learned the goals and best practices of conversation. They told stories and parables the way Jesus did. They were effective for him, and it is likely that they worked for the disciples. They were able to draw people’s real-life experiences into their conversations.  

 

The disciples walked in communion with Christ toward God’s reign along with the whole of humanity. Doing this journey together was quite important. What does it help one do: It focuses upon the community rather than the individual. Faith is never a private affair as it must involve other people. It focuses on the communion of believers rather than just me and Jesus. It is more concerned with what happens to the larger community rather than focused attention on what happens to the bread and wine. It focuses upon mission rather than personal experience. The disciples did not think in terms of “us and them” but on “we” who are part of God’s community.

 

We Christians live out concretely in imitation of Christ. The disciples lived, taught, and spoke as Jesus did, and we are to do the same. We must be attentive to the opportunities for increasing love and hope through our actions, and to espouse the values of God. We are just as responsible for bringing about the fulfillment of God’s kingdom as the disciples were. We are to tell our stories of the aliveness and pervasiveness of Jesus and his healing presence to our brothers and sisters. What are our best practices for doing that? How have we modified our speech and our way of life to imitate Jesus and his friends? Are we stripped down to authenticity so that our actions and words reflect the values of Jesus? They were instructed not just to preach peace but to be the peace they preached, and to move on from those who are not people of peace in their hearts. 

 

The kingdom is wide, and there are many people who hunger for hope and nourishment. We are sent together to be a community of hope, a community of peace. Perhaps we can take some time this week to reflect upon how we are to do our part in the mission. We have a tendency to do it on our own in prayer with Jesus, but let’s be like the disciples, sent two by two, to reflect, be inspired, and get nourished to feed the souls of a hungering world.

 

 

Scripture for Daily Mass

Monday: (Isaiah 1) When you come in to visit me, who asks these things of you? Trample my courts no more! Bring no more worthless offerings; your incense is loathsome to me.

 

Tuesday: (Isaiah 7) In the days of Ahaz, king of Judah, went up to attack Jerusalem, but they were not able to conquer it. When word came to the house of David that Aram was encamped in Ephraim, the heart of the king and the heart of the people trembled,
as the trees of the forest tremble in the wind.

 

Wednesday: (Isaiah 10) By my own power I have done it, and by my wisdom, for I am shrewd. I have moved the boundaries of peoples, their treasures I have pillaged, and, like a giant, I have put down the enthroned.

 

Thursday: (Isaiah 26) The way of the just is smooth; the path of the just you make level.
Yes, for your way and your judgments, O LORD, we look to you; Your name and your title are the desire of our souls.

 

Friday (Isaiah 38) When Hezekiah was mortally ill, the prophet Isaiah, son of Amoz, came and said to him: "Thus says the LORD: Put your house in order, for you are about to die; you shall not recover."

 

Saturday (Micha 2) Woe to those who plan iniquity, and work out evil on their couches;
In the morning light they accomplish it when it lies within their power. They covet fields, and seize them; houses, and they take them.

 

Gospel: 

Monday: (Matthew 10) Do not think that I have come to bring peace upon the earth. I have come to bring not peace but the sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
and one’s enemies will be those of his household.

 

Tuesday: (Matthew 11) Jesus began to reproach the towns where most of his mighty deeds had been done, since they had not repented. But I tell you, it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you.

 

Wednesday (Matthew 11) I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to the childlike. Yes, Father, such has been your gracious will.

 

Thursday (Matthew 11) Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves.

 

Friday (Matthew 12) Jesus was going through a field of grain on the sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick the heads of grain and eat them.

 

Saturday (Matthew 12) The Pharisees went out and took counsel against Jesus to put him to death. When Jesus realized this, he withdrew from that place. Many people followed him, and he cured them all, but he warned them not to make him known.

 

Saints of the Week

 

July 14: Kateri Tekakwitha (1656-1680) was the daughter of a Christian Algonquin mother and a non-Christian Mohawk chief. As a child, she contracted smallpox and was blinded and severely disfigured by it. She was baptized on Easter Sunday 1767 by Jesuit missionaries and was named after Catherine of Siena. She kept a strong devotion to the Eucharist and cared for the sick. She is named "the Lily of the Mohawks."

 

July 15: Bonaventure, bishop and Doctor (1221-1273), was given his name by Francis of Assisi to mean "Good Fortune" after he was cured of serious childhood illnesses. He joined the Franciscans at age 20 and studied at the University of Paris. Aquinas became his good friend. Bonaventure was appointed minister general of the Franciscans and was made a cardinal. He participated in the ecumenical council at Lyons to reunite the Greek and Latin rites. Aquinas died on the way to the council.

 

July 16: Our Lady of Mount Carmel is the patronal feast of the Carmelites. The day commemorates the day Simon Stock was given a brown scapular by Mary in 1251. In the 12th century, Western hermits settled on Mount Carmel overlooking the plain of Galilee just as Elijah did. These hermits built a chapel to Mary in the 13th century and began a life of solitary prayer.

 

July 18: Camillus de Lellis (1550-1614), began his youthful life as a soldier where he squandered away his father's inheritance through gambling. He was cared for by Capuchins, but was unable to join them because of a leg ailment. He cared for the sick in hospitals that were deplorable. He founded an order that would care for the sick and dying and for soldiers injured in combat.

 

July 20: Apollinaris, bishop and martyr (1st century) was chosen directly by Peter to take care of souls in Ravenna. He lived through the two emperors whose administrations exiled and tortured him, though he was faithful to his evangelizing work to his death.

This Week in Jesuit History

 

• July 14, 1523. Ignatius departs from Venice on his pilgrimage to the Holy Land. 
• July 15, 1570. At Avila, St Teresa had a vision of Blessed Ignatius de Azevedo and his companions ascending to heaven. This occurred at the very time of their martyrdom. 
• July 16, 1766. The death of Giusuppe Castiglione, painter and missionary to China. They paid him a tribute and gave him a state funeral in Peking (Beijing). 
• July 17, 1581. Edmund Campion was arrested in England. 
• July 18, 1973. The death of Fr. Eugene P Murphy. Under his direction the Sacred Heart Hour, which was introduced by Saint Louis University in 1939 on its radio station [WEW], became a nationwide favorite. 
• July 19, 1767. At Naples, Prime Minister Tannic, deprived the Jesuits of the spiritual care of the prisoners, a ministry that they had nobly discharged for 158 years. 
• July 20, 1944. An abortive plot against Adolf Hitler by Claus von Stauffenberg and his allies resulted in the arrest of Fr. Alfred Delp.