MISSION FOR ALL

Friday of the second week in ordinary time Today’s Gospel passage gives a short account of the call and mission of the Apostles. Jesus is the first missionary, sent by his Father with the “Good News” that God his Father is a loving, merciful, and forgiving Father Who wants to save everyone through His Son Jesus. Today’s Gospel describes how Jesus selects and empowers twelve future missionaries as Apostles, giving them his own mission along with a share of his power to preach, and to heal the sick as proof of the truth of their message. Then, Jesus sends them in pairs to the Jewish towns and villages as heralds, to prepare the people to receive the Good News. Jesus selected very ordinary people, most of them hard- working fishermen with no social status, learning, or political influence, because he was sure that they would be very effective instruments in God’s hands. It was a strange mixture of people. Matthew was a hated tax-collector for a foreign power, while Simon the Canaanean was a Zealot and fanatical nationalist who belonged to a militant group determined to destroy Roman rule by any means. The others were mostly professional fishermen with a lot of good will, patience and stamina. At first it was only their admiration and love for Jesus that united them. Jesus selected them after a night of prayer and gave them his own powers of healing and exorcism and his own mission of preaching the “Kingdom of God.” Jesus called them to him for two purposes. First, he called them to be with him. He called them to be his steady and consistent companions. Others might come and go; the crowds might be there one day and gone the next but these twelve were to identify their lives with his life and live with him all the time.

Second, he called them to send them out. He wanted them to be his representatives. He wanted them to tell others about him. They themselves had been won in order to win others.

For their tasks Jesus equipped them with two things message so that they be his heralds and power to cast out demons.

As Christians, we have the same mission that Jesus entrusted to his Apostles: to proclaim the word of God to all the world, that is, the message. We fulfil this mission primarily by living out Jesus’ teachings and by promoting and helping the world-wide missionary activities of the Church with prayer, moral support, and financial aid. We have also been given power and authority to cast our demons and admonish evil. The question is ‘do we fulfil the mission entrusted to us by Jesus Christ?