Thursday of the Fourth Week in Ordinary Time
The announcement, being on the road
He summoned the Twelve and began to send them out two by two and gave them authority over unclean spirits. He instructed them to take nothing for the journey but a walking stick – no food, no sack, no money in their belts. They were, however, to wear sandals but not a second tunic. He said to them, “Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave from there. Whatever place does not welcome you or listen to you, leave there and shake the dust off your feet in testimony against them.” So they went off and preached repentance. They drove out many demons, and they anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them. Mk 6,7-13
Some years ago we were pondering, while praying, the mandate of the evangelization and we were wondering to ourselves: “How can we find the time to evangelize?” “You know – we said to the Lord – our responsibility for a numerous family and binding professions, which we cannot deceive because, to grow and educate the sons, the economical commitment is quite significant. Please explain us, Lord, how we can do” . After having requested it to the Lord we have opened the Bible to feed by some verse of the gospel our pray and one of our sons started to read the today passage. “I have understood! – another of our sons exclaimed – the Lord answered to us: we have not to go in any place, we have only to speak about him along the way we are walking”. Years elapsed and the Lord knows that we have made it “whether it is convenient or inconvenient” (2Tm 4,2), in the family, while on the job and during the holiday time, in Italy and abroad. We have to recognize, however, that the Lord has honoured his word: the work and the related earning never have been lacking for us, we always had nice houses, we spent every year relaxing holidays and we have been able to guarantee to all our sons nice dresses, the daily bread, schools and university We think, honestly, to have been good workers of the gospel, but the Lord has been quite generous. And now that we are elder, we can witness that the promises of the gospel are true, as it is true that today the sun raises. Along our way it happened to us to pray for sick people who were sick and recovered, we saw as resurrected ones persons who were dead in the spirit and others devastated by the leprosy of the sin who came back to live serenely being in grace of God. And, incredible to say, we have seen the demons escaping from a lot of situations: we well know that all of this has been done by the Lord and not surely by us, but the Lord used us as he makes usage of every person who goes walking on the way of the evangelization.