Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time
The gratuitousness of the Kingdom
At the sight of the crowds, his heart was moved with pity for them because they were troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd.Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.” Then he summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits to drive them out and to cure every disease and every illness. Jesus sent out these twelve after instructing them thus “ …. As you go, make this proclamation: ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ As you go, make this proclamation: ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, drive out demons. Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give”.Mt 9,36-10,1.7-8
Let’s talk about evangelization. We have already done it several times and also the Church deals about often and by different ways. Thousands of exhortations, of biblical comments, of theological ponderings are published: homilies, meditations, pastoral letters, encyclicals, rituals, symposiums. These positive initiatives are capable to obtain, remarkably, a large echoes due to the modern communication media. We have not to deny that the world needs the message of the gospel and that the demons have to be dispersed. The evil enters into all the aspects of the human activity: in the family, in the school, in the profession, in the politics, in the economy and it is also present in the ecclesial communities. If we judge the tree from the fruits, we can think that there are important reasons which make the missionary action of the church so inadequate to win the evil which exists in the world. Because to evangelize means to be with the Lord on the mountain and to go thereafter to proclaim the gospel, what is the one, between these two moments, which is not adequate to the result to be obtained? Or the way to go and proclaim has to be revised? Having pondered for long time on the question, we think that all the aspects of the mission have to be verified, but the one which probably results to be rebuilt is the moment to be among ourselves and together with the Lord on the mountain. In other words we think that we have to capture again the spirit of the primitive church:” They devoted themselves to the teaching of the apostles and to the communal life, to the breaking of the bread and to the prayers…. and many wonders and signs were done through the apostles. All who believed were together and had all things in common …. Every day they devoted themselves to meeting together in the temple area” (Acts 2,42-46). It is clear that the context and the spirit of the primitive church cannot be reproduced in the today church, even if at the local level this could be possible. The evangelization is not an individual fact: the motor of the mission is the ecclesial spirit, so as this family prayer is for our day. Give us, Lord, to understand that the mission is born from the stay together among ourselves and with you.