Word to the Wise
Thursday, October 5, 2023 - Thursday in the 26th Week in Ordinary Time
[Neh 8:1-4a, 5-6, 7b-12 and Luke 10:1-12]Jesus appointed seventy-two other disciples whom he sent ahead of him in pairs to every town and place he intended to visit. He said to them, "The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest." [Luke]
At this point in the "big picture" of Luke's gospel, the mission and ministry of Jesus is going to expand beyond Galilee. He is on his way to Jerusalem. But the even bigger picture is contained in the choice of "seventy-two other disciples." In the Book of Genesis, the number of nations listed in the world is given at seventy-two. A mission this large will required more than Jesus and the Twelve. The instructions reflect what the earliest missionaries were experiencing at the time Luke was composing. The mission was becoming truly "catholic," a word that means universal.
When I was growing up, the word "missionary" usually meant priests and sisters who went to foreign lands, although I was aware of Dominican friars who were serving rural "missions" not far from my hometown. As a novice in the Dominican Order, I met friars who were serving in Nigeria and who would visit the novitiate when they were on home leave. One of them was a bishop in a mostly Moslem area!!! It was a challenging and inspiring experience but not one I felt called to!
After the Second Vatican Council, the vocation of missionary increasingly expanded to include laity. More recently we in the United States have begun to experience priests from abroad coming to serve here. We have become missionary territory simply because the "harvest is abundant, but the laborers are few." There are also organizations like FOCUS and St. Paul Outreach that recruit students to be missionaries on campuses around the country. Last but not least, Pope Francis, at the beginning of his pontificate, challenged all of us who are baptized to become "missionary disciples."
Jesus' appointment of the seventy-two was just the beginning of what would, after Pentecost, become a mission to the whole world. We are challenged to pray to the harvest master to send out laborers, The harvest master in turn will say to us, "Why not YOU?" What do WE say? AMEN