A REFLECTION FOR THE 29TH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY (MISSION SUNDAY). Who, Me, Missionary? We can think of mission as something that is the responsibility of others. It belongs to priests and religious, and it involves travel to distant parts. Today, Mission Sunday, reminds us that the whole church is missionary, and that each of us, in virtue of our baptism, has a role to play in the churchs mission. To be a member of the church is to be missionary. To believe is to witness to our belief. Each of us, in different ways, can be a little like Peter in the gospel reading. We can be slow to take ourselves seriously as missionaries. After Peters experience of the wonderful catch of fish, he may have sensed that the Lord had something in mind for him to do. He attempted to head Jesus off, as it were, with his cry, Leave me, Lord; I am a sinful man. Overcome by his own sense of inadequacy and unworthiness, he sought to put as much distance as possible between himself and Jesus. As far as he was concerned, he was merely a fisherman, and not always a successful one. Perhaps the experience of working hard all night and catching nothing was not new to him. Yet, Jesus recognized that this fisherman, and others like him, could draw people to God. Jesus did not take his leave of Peter, as Peter had suggested. Rather, he called Peter to accompany him and to share in his mission. The gospels are full of Peters - people from all walks of life who, in various ways, share in Jesus mission and witness to him before others. Many of these would not have been regarded as religious in the usual sense of that word at the time. They would not have thought of themselves as potential missionaries. We need only think of the leper who began to spread the word after his healing (Mk 1:45), the demon possessed man from the country of the Gerasenes who began to proclaim in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him (Mk 5:20), the parents who brought children to Jesus that he might bless them (Mk 10:13), the Samaritan woman who brought the people of her town to Jesus, the nameless woman who anointed Jesus feet head with precious ointment, and whose good deed Jesus declared to be part of the gospel (Mk 14:9), the Roman centurion who publicly declared that the crucified Jesus was the Son of God (Mk 15:39). The list could go on. Here are men and women from all walks of life who proclaimed the gospel by their words and deeds. We are all invited to join the company of these men and women. When Jesus called upon the seventy two to ask the Lord of the harvest to send labourers into his harvest, he had all of us in mind. There is a role for each one of us in the Lords harvest. We each have a part to play in the Lords mission. There is a task for each of us to do, which, if not done by us, cannot be done by anyone else. We each have a unique set of opportunities to reveal the Lord to others, and to allow those around us to experience the Lord in us. It is not easy to share our faith in the culture in which we live. Faith in God has come to be regarded as something private, like our pin number. Yet, by definition, to believe is to witness to our belief. The public act of going to Mass on a Sunday is one form of witness. In todays culture where church attendance is declining in Europe though not that much in Africa, such a public act can be more powerful than ever before. Yet, there is more to witnessing and to being missionary than going to church. We are called to be witnesses in our homes, in our schools and colleges, in our offices and our factories, in our supermarkets and our places of recreation. We are called to bring the values of the gospel into all the contexts in which we live, and, also to recognize and to affirm the gospel values that are already there. Being a missionary very much entails also fulfilling our responsibilities to the state, “give to Caesar what is Caesars’ and to God what is Gods’’, as reiterated in today’s God-spell reading. The call of Peter began with Jesus asking him to put out a little from the shore. Jesus subsequently asked him to put out into deep water. The call to put out into the deep can sound rather daunting to us. We may not be ready to launch out into the deep. Perhaps the Lord may only be asking us, for the moment, to put out a little from the shore. There may be some small step we can take to become more missionary in the living of our faith. When Jesus appointed the twelve, he first called them to be with him, and only after some time did he send them out (Mk 3:14, 6:7). The call to mission begins with the call to be present to Jesus. The first small step the Lord may be asking of us in becoming more missionary could be to become more prayerful. Our prayerful communion with the Lord of the harvest prepares us to be labourers in the harvest of the Lord. Let’s pray for the freedom to take whatever small step the Lord may be asking of us this Mission Sunday, always believing and trusting in His Love, Mercy and Confidence in us to accomplish His mission on Earth, Amen I wish you all a mission-filled Sunday!
Posted on: Thu, 16 Oct 2014 06:22:42 +0000
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