04 October. Thursday, Week 26

1st Reading: Job (19:21-27 )

Job hopes one day to see God

Have pity on me, have pity on me, O you my friends,
for the hand of God has touched me!
Why do you, like God, pursue me,
never satisfied with my flesh?
O that my words were written down!
O that they were inscribed in a book!
O that with an iron pen and with lead
they were engraved on a rock forever!
For I know that my Redeemer lives,
and that at the last he will stand upon the earth;
and after my skin has been thus destroyed,
then in my flesh I shall see God,
whom I shall see on my side,
and my eyes shall behold, and not another.

Resp. Psalm (Ps 27)

R.: I am sure I shall see the Lord’s goodness in the land of the living

O Lord, hear my voice when I call;
have mercy and answer.
Of you my heart has spoken:
‘Seek his face.’ (R./)
It is your face, O Lord, that I seek;
hide not your face.
Dismiss not your servant in anger;
you have been my help. (R./)
I am sure I shall see the Lord’s goodness
in the land of the living.
Hope in him, hold firm and take heart.
Hope in the Lord! (R./)

Gospel: Luke (10:1-12)

Jesus sends out 72 disciples to announce the reign of God

The Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go. He said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest. Go on your way. See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and greet no one on the road. Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this house!’ And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you.
Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide, for the labourer deserves to be paid. Do not move about from house to house. Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; cure the sick who are there, and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’ But whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go out into its streets and say, ‘Eve the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off in protest against you. Yet know this: the kingdom of God has come near.’ I tell you, on that day it will be more tolerable for Sodom than for that town.”

A sense of urgency

There is an urgency in each of these readings. Job wants his words to be “cut in the rock forever” “with an iron chisel and with lead.” Jesus sends out the seventy-two disciples with no provisions, lest they be hampered in their keen and rapid announcement that the reign of God is at hand. Job sets aside all human means of justification and reaches out for  God’s immediate presence. Job is faced with a once-in-a-lifetime ordeal. Human comforters, with their ancient wisdom and respected advice, simply intensified his agony. Job does not want theological explanations but called out, “Pity me, pity, O you my friends.. Why do you hound me as though you were divine?” Then he takes his case directly to God. Each of us too at singular crises may be face to face with the awesome God in the depth of our conscience.
Jesus announces that our best wishes will be fulfilled in the reign of God. Yet, we also know that this reign, inaugurated by the Gospel, did not lead at once to a glorious paradise but rather to the long period of church history, still awaiting the second coming of Jesus.
Jesus is urgent with the message, “The reign of God is at hand.” Once we stake our very life on accepting the reign of God, then the rest of our journey through life will benefit from the gospel and especially from the presence of God, “my Vindicator.. whom I myself shall see.” We need to be prepared for the many tomorrows that may lie ahead, lest we reject the Lord’s message in the here and now. He told his messengers, “If the people of any town you enter do not welcome you, go into its streets and say, ‘We shake the dust of this town from our feet as testimony against you. But know that the reign of God is near.’”
 

Spread the message, regardless

Jesus tells his missionaries that regardless of the reception they receive from a particular town, they are to announce, “the kingdom of God is very near to you.” If they are made welcome in a town, they are to make that announcement, but even if they are not made welcome, they are still to make that announcement. Jesus is saying that regardless of whether the gospel is well received or badly received, the kingdom of God remains very near to us. In other words, people may differ, but God remains the same. God remains powerfully present, his reign of love is close at hand, regardless of how the Gospel is received.
Especially at times when hunger for the Lord and for his Word does not seem to be as keen as it once was, we remind ourselves that God was as much present on Good Friday as he was on Easter Sunday. God is powerfully at work in our world at all times, if only we could discern it.

(Saint Francis of Assisi, friar)

Giovanni di Bernardone (1181-1226), was nicknamed Francesco (“the Frenchman”) by his father Pietro, as his mother was French. As a young man Francesco lived the life of a troubador and planned to fight for Assisi as a soldier. But in 1204 he had a vision that redirected his life; on a pilgrimage to Rome, he joined some poor people begging at Saint Peter’s Basilica and resolved from then on to live in poverty and simplicity in the service of Christ and the Church. He began preaching in the streets, and soon gathered an Order, later called Franciscans, that followed this evangelical lifestyle. With Saint Clare of Assisi he also founded the Poor Clares, an enclosed religious order for women, as well as a confraternity, the Third Order, for laypeople. In 1219, he tried to convert the Sultan to put an end to the Crusades. Once his Order was authorized by the Pope, he withdrew from external affairs to a life of austerity and prayer. In 1224, he received the stigmata, and bore in his body the wounds of Christ’s Passion. He is patron saint of animals, of peace and of the environment, and is one of the two patrons of Italy.