Wednesday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time
Listening to the Lord and the mission
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, “Do not go into pagan territory or enter a Samaritan town. Go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. As you go, make this proclamation: ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ Mt 10,1-7
When, many years ago, we began the prayer of the morning and the daily meditation of the word of God, among many others which submerge us into the life of every day, we have been driven, like Peter, by the need to listen “words of eternal life” (Jn 6,68). We drank from this word and then we went on our way to fulfill our commitments and to meet people, as our programs and the passing of the time were suggesting. So, without planning it, since years we are living the page of the today’s gospel, which invites to meditate on the importance of these two moments of our day: to be with Jesus and go on a mission in the world. Matthew says today: “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’ “. It is the dynamic of the christian life: a centripetal movement to the Lord to be trained by him and a centrifugal one to the world, going where we are taken by our commitments and announcing along the way that the kingdom of heaven is at hand. It is an announcement which, openly or silently, must be brought to everyone, even to those who want to stay away. This is the true evangelization, much more difficult than the one made in the church or during a spiritual retreat, where the people are already prepared to accept the message of the gospel. It is essential that these two moments are present in our day: the time of listening to the Lord and the moment of the mission. A mission without listening leads to a purely vacuum and blind efficiency; a listening without mission leads to a disembodied faith and destined to fade. A good combination of both these moments originates a growing in the faith for us and for the contexts in which we operate. It is acted by believing and it is believed by acting. This way of living the faith can transform a day, otherwise a routine, in a wonderful and always new adventure. It is not difficult to create opportunities for witnessing: they come on their own, it is enough not to choke it. It suffices to say to a person afflicted for a problem: “Sorry! Can I help you? I will pray for you”.