If you are looking at a particular sermon and it is removed it is because it has been updated.

For example Year C 2010 is being replaced week by week with Year C 2013, and so on.

Saturday 6 July 2013

14th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C 2013



14th. Sunday (C)


(Isaiah 66:10-14; Galatians: 6:14-18; Luke 10:1-12, 17-20)



In the Gospel reading for last week, the 13th. Sunday, St. Luke told us that: 

Jesus, resolutely determined to journey to Jerusalem, and sent messengers ahead of Him.  On the way they entered a Samaritan village to prepare for His reception there, but they would not welcome Him, because the destination of His journey was Jerusalem.

Today we learn that, subsequently:

The Lord appointed seventy-two others whom He sent ahead of Him in pairs to every town and place He intended to visit.

We can suppose that Jesus had originally sent a single pair of messengers to the Samaritan village appearing before Him on their way to Jerusalem; but what a difference now: He sends 72 others ahead of Him, two by two!!  Why such a striking difference, why such a specific number? 

The first disciples had been sent to a village on the way to prepare an overnight resting place for Jesus and His disciples, but they had not been welcomed by the villagers concerned. Today’s mission would seem to have been sent symbolically to the whole world, in preparation for Jesus’ coming to the whole of mankind in the persons of the twelve Apostles and His Church; for there were 70 ancients of Israel, plus Moses and Aaron, to ratify the Covenant of Sinai; there were also 70 leaders in Israel, plus Eldad and Medad who were given a share in Moses’ prophetic spirit when he found it too hard to lead Israel alone; there were also 70 nations on earth we are told in the book of Genesis (10).

These are the clans of the sons of Noah, in their nations, and from these the nations spread abroad on the earth after the flood. (Genesis 10:32)

In sending out the 72 messengers to prepare for the coming of the word of God which the Apostles would proclaim, Jesus was recalling the Old Covenant ... now to be replaced by the New Covenant in Jesus’ blood, the old prophetic message of Moses, now to be replaced by the Good News of Jesus; and on the return of the 72 – rejoicing -- we are told, Jesus Himself revealed and proclaimed the momentous, indeed the apocalyptic, import of their work of evangelization:

I have observed Satan fall like lightning from the sky.  Behold, I have given you the power to tread upon serpents and scorpions and upon the full force of the enemy and nothing will harm you.

You will remember the following incident from the Acts of the Apostles when the Gospel message of Paul and Barnabas was rejected by the Jews at Antioch:

When the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy and talked abusively against what Paul was saying.  Then Paul and Barnabas answered them boldly: ‘We had to speak the Word of God to you first.  Since you reject it and do not consider yourselves worthy of eternal life, we now turn to the Gentiles.  For this is what the Lord has commanded us: “I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.”’  (13:45-47)

Paul was a great disciple of Jesus; he may well have known of Jesus’ rejection by the Samaritans (regarded, in those days, as bastard Jews) and of His symbolic ‘world’ mission of 72 followers ... did the Spirit recall to his mind what Jesus had said and done in this regard?   However that may be, the fact is that Paul and Barnabas on their first missionary journey in the name of the Church of Christ, followed Jesus’ own example, and, in the power of His Spirit, took the word of God – after its rejection by the Jews of Antioch -- to the nations, thereby initiating the unfolding of Satan’s fall seen in anticipation by Jesus.

Oh, for a mind and heart able to see and appreciate something of the wonder of God’s wisdom and beauty to be found in the Scriptures of Mother Church:  Jesus sending out the 72 not only recalls the beginnings of mankind and of God’s direct dealings with His Chosen People but also foresees from their endeavours in His name the ultimate downfall of Satan and the heavens opened to welcome saved mankind!!

Let us now look at another aspect of today’s Gospel reading:

Whatever town you enter and they do not receive you, go out into the streets and say, ‘The dust of your town that clings to our feet, even that we shake off against you.  Yet know this: the Kingdom of God is at hand.’  I tell you, it will be more tolerable for Sodom on that day than for that town.

And we have verse 16 omitted in our reading today:

He who listens to you listens to Me; he who rejects you rejects Me; but he who rejects Me rejects Him Who sent Me.

Notice; those who reject, no, even those who do not welcome, will not listen to, the Word will be rejected.  How can that be?  It can only be because mankind, being made in the image and likeness of God, is made for the Word of God.  The Good News of Jesus is the natural food for those whom God has made in His own likeness.  Just as a child finds its natural food at its mother’s breast, so too mankind is made in such a fashion as to find supernatural nourishment from the Word of God and the Sacrament of His Church:

Exult with her, all you who were mourning over her!  Oh, that you might suck fully of the milk of her comfort, that you may nurse with delight at her abundant breasts!  For thus says the Lord: Lo, I will spread prosperity over Jerusalem like a river, and the wealth of the nations like an overflowing torrent.  As nurslings you shall be carried in her arms, and fondled in her lap; as a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you; in Jerusalem you shall find your comfort.  When you see this your hearts shall rejoice and your bodies flourish like the grass; the Lord’s power shall be known to His servants.

We are made for God; and if we, ultimately, cannot rejoice over, will not welcome, do not trust His Word of Truth and His Spirit of Love then we will die. There can be no excuse for we would have destroyed our very selves.

People of God, today the Western world is, in so many ways, literally falling over itself to separate itself from any acceptance of the wisdom of an authoritative and loving God: when ‘husband’ is not to refer, necessarily, to a man, nor ‘wife’ to a woman, when, in fact, ‘husband’ can be a woman, ‘wife’ can be a man;  when children are no longer God’s gift to human nature, but can be of human procurement – proclaimed as loving and caring -- against nature.  In these modern times of moral darkness when passing ideas and current fancies, mistaken ideals and febrile, fruitless, hopes are picked up and proclaimed by so many seeking to be their own masters in all things, and attempting so proudly to masterfully guide their own society and the world around from their own pitifully and appallingly limited awareness and understanding, we can profitably notice and learn from St. Paul’s words in our second reading:

Peace and mercy to all who follow the rule of Christ; for through the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, the world is being crucified to us, and we ourselves to the world.  Let nothing make trouble for you, for you are part of a new creation.  The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.