Word to the Wise
Friday, July 12, 2024 - Friday in the 14th Week in Ordinary Time
[Hos 14:2-10 and Matt 10:16-23]Let him who is wise understand these things; let him who is prudent know them. Straight are the paths of the Lord, in them the just walk, but sinners stumble in them. [Hosea] "Behold, I am sending you like sheep in the midst of wolves; so be shrewd as serpents and simple as doves." [Matthew]
The 10th chapter of the Gospel According to Matthew is one of five "discourses" in that gospel and is called the "missionary discourse." I think of it as the first seminary curriculum! Anyone who is baptized is enrolled. We are all called, as Pope Francis put it, to be "missionary disciples." The subject matter is rather tough. Jesus warns disciples of rough sledding ahead - what the Lutheran pastor, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, called "the Cost of Discipleship." Jesus promises support in the form of "the Spirit of your Father speaking through you."
The right mixture of prudence and shrewdness is not always easy to find. It requires some "stumbling" on the path of the Lord (as Hosea notes today). What is important is reflection on experiences, good and bad, so that wisdom may be gained in the path of discipleship. A wise Dominican missionary who worked in home missions near my hometown where Catholics were few once told me, when I asked why he kept at it when the results were often discouraging, "You're only going to do a limited amount of good. What is important is to do that limited amount." Wisdom enables us to learn what limitations there are in the work before us and what limitations exist in us as well. The danger is in setting the bar too low because we are too afraid of what Jesus says may occur to disciples. Prudence and courage must join hands for the task. AM