THIRTIETH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
(Ecclesiasticus 33:1-7.17-18.19.23; II Timothy 4:6-8.16-18;
Luke 18:9-14)
At the end of the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus
leaves his disciples with a mission. They are to preach his name to all the
peoples of the world. For this reason, some say that the Church does not have a
mission; it is mission. The popes have emphasized the need for missions by
designating one Sunday each year as "World Mission Sunday." It is
always celebrated today, the penultimate Sunday of October.
As a theme for the celebration this year, Pope Francis draws
from a phrase of Jesus before ascending to heaven, "'... let them be my
witnesses'". He wants everyone, not just missionaries to foreign
countries, to bear witness to Jesus in their daily lives. To know Christ our
increasingly secularized society needs the efforts of all of Christians. People
are not going to find many traces of him on TV, in movies, or in newspapers.
As a model of bearing witness to Christ we have St. Paul. In
the second reading Paul says that he has been faithful in his mission to
proclaim Christ's salvation to the Gentiles. When considering his achievement,
even the cynical person is astonished. Paul constantly risked his life as he
converted probably thousands to believe in Christ. Although the Roman roads he
traversed were well built, they were not protected from robbers. Furthermore,
he experienced being stoned once and being shipwrecked and flogged several
times. He suffered various kinds of inconveniences and insults. He spent many
nights exposed to the elements, hot or cold, rainy or snowy. He endured the
mockery of the Greeks and the scorn of the Jews for proclaiming as the Lord of
the universe one who was crucified.
How did Paul persist in his mission with so much travail?
Was it simply because Jesus appeared to him and entrusted him with a mission?
No, for such a reasonable person as his letters show, these reasons alone are
not totally convincing. What prompted Paul to sacrifice his life including
martyrdom in Rome was something even more embracing. It was the love he shared
with Jesus. He loved him as his liberator, as the one who rescued him from
hatred and error. Even more palpable was the love of Christ that he felt in his
heart. As he writes to the Romans: “For I am sure that neither death, nor life,
nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor
powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other no creature will be able to
separate us from the love of God manifested in Christ Jesus our Lord.
This same love brings us here. We seek the one who gave us
his life, body and soul, to sustain us in the struggle of living as God’s family.
It is up to us to respond to this love by taking a role in the mission of
proclaiming his name to the world. The Church has always depended on the laity
for prayer and contributions to advance the apostolic mission. Now, with fewer
nuns and priests, the testimony of the laity is needed. It needs the testimony
of people like Blessed Carlos Manuel RodrÃguez, the Puerto Rican layman who led
many students to a deeper understanding of Christ and his Church. It requires
an example of the moral courage of the Italian saint Gianna Molla who died of
cancer instead of aborting her child while receiving surgery.
Although witnessing with one’s life is necessary, it is not
a complete substitute for witnessing with words. Paul himself says: “…faith
comes from preaching, and preaching through the word of Christ” (Rom 10:17).
Recently, a laywoman with a microphone was seen witnessing to Christ in front
of the church. Although we do not want to criticize such efforts, neither do we
believe that they are effective. But what is effective is the explanation of
the gospel to our children at home. With such an effort, we may save both
ourselves and them.
