Daily Retreat 07/17/06
2006 Jul 17 Mon: Ordinary Weekday
Is 1: 10-17/ Ps 49(50): 8-9. 16bc-17. 21 and 23/ Mt 10: 34 – 11: 1
From today’s readings: “Wash yourselves clean! Put away your misdeeds from before My eyes; cease doing evil; learn to do good.... Why do you recite My statutes, and profess My covenant with your mouth, though you hate discipline and cast My words behind you?... Whoever receives you receives Me, and whoever receives Me receives the One who sent Me.”
Mission Command
Chapter Ten of the Gospel of St. Matthew forms a set of missionary instructions for the Apostles, and for modern disciples as well! Note that these instructions are more than mere recommendations and suggestions, for the discourse ends with the note, “When Jesus finished giving these commands to His Twelve disciples....”
Authentic Christian faith is, quite frankly, necessarily missionary, as is clear from a summary review of Chapter Ten, for Jesus instructed His Apostles to confront and cast out spirits of evil, to bring healing in His Name, to proclaim the Kingdom, to share their blessings freely and fully, to avoid worrying about material things, and to persevere boldly in spite of the worst persecutions imaginable.
The faith that you and I treasure has been passed on to us by the Apostles and succeeding generations of Christians. If they had not fulfilled the Lord’s mission command, fewer people (including ourselves!) would have received the faith! Likewise, if each one of us do not in turn fulfill the mission command, living and sharing our faith with the people to whom God sends us, then the Church will be curtailed and deprived in coming generations.
Is 1: 10-17/ Ps 49(50): 8-9. 16bc-17. 21 and 23/ Mt 10: 34 – 11: 1
From today’s readings: “Wash yourselves clean! Put away your misdeeds from before My eyes; cease doing evil; learn to do good.... Why do you recite My statutes, and profess My covenant with your mouth, though you hate discipline and cast My words behind you?... Whoever receives you receives Me, and whoever receives Me receives the One who sent Me.”
Mission Command
Chapter Ten of the Gospel of St. Matthew forms a set of missionary instructions for the Apostles, and for modern disciples as well! Note that these instructions are more than mere recommendations and suggestions, for the discourse ends with the note, “When Jesus finished giving these commands to His Twelve disciples....”
Authentic Christian faith is, quite frankly, necessarily missionary, as is clear from a summary review of Chapter Ten, for Jesus instructed His Apostles to confront and cast out spirits of evil, to bring healing in His Name, to proclaim the Kingdom, to share their blessings freely and fully, to avoid worrying about material things, and to persevere boldly in spite of the worst persecutions imaginable.
The faith that you and I treasure has been passed on to us by the Apostles and succeeding generations of Christians. If they had not fulfilled the Lord’s mission command, fewer people (including ourselves!) would have received the faith! Likewise, if each one of us do not in turn fulfill the mission command, living and sharing our faith with the people to whom God sends us, then the Church will be curtailed and deprived in coming generations.
posted by FrPitstick | 7/16/2006
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