XIV Sunday of Ordinary Time
Luke 10, 1-12. 17-20.
"The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Therefore ask the Lord of the harvest that he send out workers into his harvest. Go! Behold, I am sending you out like lambs in the midst of wolves! [Lk 10:2-3]
My dearest brothers and sisters,
In today’s Gospel, we hear Jesus’ affirmation about the urgency of being a missionary in this world; the importance of being an Evangelist.
First of all,
Jesus said, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few” [Lk 10,2]. This verse is about a very general situation that is happening all over the world. For example, in Indonesia, with an enormous Muslim population, the increasing number of Catholics and Christian is also significant. Therefore, the need for priests is also massive in the Bogor Diocese, where I belong. The other example as well is here in our parish in Rovegno. At least for eight years, when I have come here often, the situation has remained the same. A parish priest must do the pastoral services for more than eleven churches in the Val Trebbia zone.
What Jesus said is still happening: “the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.”
Then Jesus asks us: “Therefore ask the Lord of the harvest that he send out workers into his harvest.” He asks us to be ready as an Evangelist who proclaims the good news of Jesus Christ, calling those who hear to believe in him. I want to invite you all to reflect on our call to be an evangelist, to be a missionary in our daily life that we have received in our baptism as Jesus Christ commands us to “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation” [Mrk 16:15]. Not to be a priest or a nun, but to be the ambassador of Christ, who avoid the self-proclamation but faithful proclamation of the Gospel, the Good News. There are some tasks of missionaries: Announcing good news [Is 52:7; Lk 4:43], Proclaiming the Gospel [Ro 15:16; Ro 15:20–21], Testifying the truth about Jesus Christ [Ac 10:42–43], and Calling people to believe in Jesus Christ [Ro 10:13–14]
Dearest brothers and sisters,
There are always challenges and threads to being a Gospel carrier in our daily life. But Jesus encourages us by saying, “Go! Behold, I am sending you out like lambs in the midst of wolves!” [Luke 10:3]. Carrying out the task requires integrity and commitment in the face of hardships and danger; it also brings joy to see the church grow. Pope Francis invited us to be a missionary of Hope when he urged, “In our present circumstances, there is an urgent need for missionaries of hope who, anointed by the Lord, can provide a prophetic reminder that no one is saved by himself.” Bringing Hope to one another is a being His workers, missionaries, and evangelists.
RDHJ