-Last Sunday's homily is available
-This Sunday's Scriptures can be found at www.usccb.org/readings
-check out this weeks LinC letter at www.parishLinCLetter.blogspot.com
-I will be celebrating mass this weekend at 8:00 am and 6:00pm on Sunday
Here We Go Again!
We often think of the greatest witness(witness = martyr) that one can give is to die for the love of God. Martyrdom is the word we use to describe those who have died in defense of the faith in pure imitation of Jesus. The gospel for this Sunday reports the sending of the disciples (apostoloi = those who are SENT) to save the lost of the House of Israel. It is possibly a more fundamental witness and a more "difficult" one. Jesus describes himself as the One whom the Father SENT. He also says, "as the Father sent Me, so I SEND you". So, to be sent by God to witness to Jesus' saving love may be the best way to imitate Jesus = witness.
My experience of the faith and my life in the priesthood seems to be an unbroken chain of days on which I have BEEN SENT. There is an important quality to being sent. One who is sent does not "come in his own name" rather the one sent represents the other. In this case God. Or is that true?
The area for growth among those who see themselves as SENT is the purification of this awareness and the faithfulness to the ONE sending. I can look back on my chain of days as one sent and I can see seasons during which I was not really representing the One Who sent but I was asserting the one sent: the self-separate. Jesus has described these variously as the wiley manager, hired hand, whitewashed sepulcher, unfaithful steward, foolish virgin...all of these have forgotten the SENDER and imposed rather the SENT.
All the baptized must reclaim their identity as missionaries.....disciples who are SENT to the lost of the household of God. "Every One Adds One by 2016" is calling us to see ourselves as SENT, apostles, with a mission to grow the church-communion through participation in the Eucharistic-communion that we celebrate here.
So, here we GO again!
