All invitations from God
come as an invitation, not as a threat.
It’s through love and not a threat
that God invites us into life and discipleship.
--Fr. Ron Rolheiser, OMI
[Sunday’s] gospel passage seems to almost give a string of instructions that are loosely strung together and not really explained. Some seem to be, but it’s not entirely clear what links all of these instructions together. In fact, the link is that the disciples who are being sent out already know the kingdom. They know the grace of Christ’s presence in their lives. They know and have had a taste of the kingdom they are going out to proclaim. The kingdom of God is at hand: they have already been through this process of reconciling the depth of their own sinfulness with the gracious mercy of Jesus who is among them. They already know this kingdom.
That is why the peculiar Watanabe in O’Brien Hall, the one with five figures, is called “Five Apostles.” The text attached to it is, I am sending you out as lambs among wolves. The five figures are celebrating in a paradise environment filled with flowers and birds and butterflies. Because even though the world may threaten them, the mercy of God is greater. The kingdom is greater. And when they go out, that is what they are to keep in mind. It is to be central to what they do. Then they won’t need a walking stick or a sack or money – because they have the one thing they do need: they have the kingdom within them.
That is what they are going to proclaim to all the places Jesus intends to visit, that they might see the kingdom at work in something. That is what we are supposed to be about. We’re supposed to come to this deep realization of how far we have fallen, how much we failed to follow through on the Lord’s commands, but only so that it might draw us closer to him and closer to the mercy that we are meant to go out and proclaim to the world. For mercy is the kingdom. We are to take the kingdom with us, give witness to it, and it is to send us out into other people’s lives, not to leave us turned in on ourselves.
These seventy-two go out because they have been transformed, and Jesus hasn’t even died yet. Think of how much power Christ has invested in us, that we might do the same.
--Fr. Patrick Michaels,
Homily, October 5, 2023
Image source: Sadao Watanabe, Five Apostles, https://www.weschlers.com/auction-lot/sadao-watanabe-japanese-1913-1996-five-apostle_D974AFCB7B. This woodcut also hangs in O’Brien Hall.
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