Today,
the fifteenth Sunday of ordinary time (B), we read that Jesus sends
out the Twelve, two by two, to preach. Up until now they had
accompanied the Master through Galilee, but the time had come for
them to start spreading the Gospel, the Good News: the news
that God, Our Father, loves us with an endless love and that he has
brought us into existence so as He could make us eternally happy.
This news is for everybody. Nobody is left outside of these
liberating teachings of Jesus. Nobody is excluded from the Love of
God. It has to reach every corner of the Earth. The joy of full and
universal salvation, through Jesus Christ, the Son of God made man
for our sake, who died and was resurrected and is actively present in
the Church, has to be announced to the world.
Equipped
with «authority over evil spirits» (Mk 6,7) and
with almost nothing else —«And He ordered them to take
nothing for the journey except a staff; no food, no bag, no money in
their belts. They were to wear sandals and were not to take an extra
tunic» (Mk 6,8)— they begin the Church's mission.
The effectiveness of their evangelization will not depend on human or
material influences but on the power of God and on sincerity, on the
faith and witness of he who is preaching. «the force ,the
energy and the giving of oneself shown by the evangelists comes from
a source which is the love of God, placed in our hearts by the gift
of the Holy Spirit» (John Paul II).
At
the beginning of the 21st Century, the Good News still hasn't
reached all corners yet, nor with the necessary intensity. Conversion
has to be preached; there are many evil spirits to be defeated.
Do
those of us who have received the Good News appreciate its
value? Are we aware of it? Are we grateful for it? Do we feel like
missionaries, sent out to preach with example and, if
necessary with words, so that nobody who comes our way in this life
be denied the Good News.
