29th Sunday of Ordinary Time
October 21, 2018
Mark 10: 35-45Collect
Nativity, Washington, D.C.
As noted 3 posts below, my blog was down for 4 weeks. So I'm gradually posting material, and this Sunday homily is a week behind the current date. Sorry 'bout that. It's Google's fault.
“The
Son of Man [came] to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10: 45).
World
Mission Sunday is an annual observance of the entire Catholic Church. Perhaps in fact we don’t always observe it in
our parishes; but this evening we’re doing so.
The
intent of the observance is to remind us that the entire Church is
missionary. Our Lord Jesus commissioned
us—all of us—to “go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every
creature” (Mark 16:15), words that we heard in the Collect. You can try that on such creatures as your
dogs and cats and the weeds in your flower beds if you like, but of course
Jesus really means “to every person,” however a biblical literalist might
interpret him.
After
that reminder, the day encourages us to pray for the spread of the Gospel, as
we’re doing in our Mass this evening: to
pray that missionaries will go courageously and humbly into places where Jesus
isn’t known; that each of us will be a witness to Jesus Christ in the way we
live our own lives and will be ready to talk about our faith when it’s
opportune to do so; that people will be receptive to God’s Word; that cultures
like our own Western culture may be converted once again. Don’t we very much desire that our country
will be “one nation under God” and not a nation worshiping the stock market, a
political party, self-indulgence, or even the Redskins?
What
is this Gospel message of Jesus that we pray will be proclaimed and heard
everywhere and among everyone? There are
numerous ways of summarizing it, and the last line of today’s gospel reading
from Mark is an apt summary: “The Son of
Man”—Jesus’ self-description—“came to give his life as a ransom for many.”
The Last Supper by Dagnan-Bouveret
"This is the cup of my blood … shed for you and for many."
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That
2-word prepositional phrase “for many” echoes the words of consecration at
Mass, doesn’t it? “This is the chalice
of my blood ... which will be poured out for you [the apostles in front of him]
and for many for the forgiveness of
sins.”
What
does “for many” mean? It refers to our
salvation and to the scope of Christ’s redemption. In a passage recorded by St. Luke, someone
asks Jesus, “Lord, will those who are saved be few?” (13:23). In the Lord’s time, and in the 1st years of
the apostles’ preaching of the Gospel, there certainly were people who thought
that God’s saving power was restricted to a few, that God loved only a few,
meaning mainly devout, virtuous Jews; and today there are Christian sects who
teach that God’s grace touches and saves only a chosen few, excluding from the
very possibility of salvation anyone who hasn’t explicitly accepted Jesus as
Savior.
Is
God’s will that “everyone be saved,” as St. Paul writes to Timothy (1 Tim 2:4),
so ineffectual that only a few will actually get into Heaven? No! In
both today’s gospel and in the words by which Jesus instituted the Eucharist,
Christ proclaims the purpose of his mission:
“to give his life for the ransom of many,” for the forgiveness of the
sins of many. Christ’s saving will is
wide, not narrow. The Good News of grace
is for all of humanity.
It’s
the mission of the Church and of every faithful disciple of Jesus to preach
that Gospel of God’s love and forgiveness given us thru Jesus Christ.
What
does that mean for us, sisters and brothers?
How do we carry out what the Collect prayed for us, “feel a more urgent
call to work for the salvation of every creature”?
1st,
hear the Gospel yourself and come confidently to Jesus, “confidently approach
the throne of grace to receive mercy,” as the Letter to the Hebrews urges us
today (4:16).
2d,
pray for missionaries who are preaching the Gospel in foreign lands that have
never been evangelized, in de-Christianized Europe, on agnostic college
campuses. When I mention foreign lands,
you might think of your dear Salesians, for instance, 1,700 of whom are
bringing Christ’s love to 42 nations in Africa, from Tunis in the north to Cape
Town in the south, from Dakar on the Atlantic to Dar-es-Salaam on the Indian
Ocean. As you know, Fr. John Cosgrove
was once one of those missionaries in Sierra Leone; presently there are 2
Americans and 1 Canadian Salesian on the continent, and 2 Americans and 1
Canadian Salesian sister.
American SDB Fr. Larry Gilmore with kids
at the Salesian mission in Monrovia, Liberia, in 2003
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3d,
pray for the people of these missionary lands, those who’ve yet to receive
Christ as their Redeemer and those
who’ve accepted the Gospel and are trying to follow Christ faithfully—some of
them in the face of vicious persecution, e.g., in Iraq, Pakistan, India, China,
Nigeria, and elsewhere.
4th,
when opportunity presents, give your financial support to appeals here at
Nativity for overseas missionaries or appeals you receive in the mail, as many
of you do from Salesian Missions in New Rochelle.
5th,
be a missionary. Live the Gospel the
best you can in your families, your workplaces or schools, and among your
friends; if given an opportunity, speak of your faith modestly but confidently.
6th,
if you’re relatively young, healthy, and independent, consider becoming a
Salesian Lay Missioner, making a one-year commitment to service with the
Salesians or Salesian Sisters in Africa, South America, or even a U.S. site
like Tampa.
May
God bless you, his beloved children, my sisters and brothers. May our Lord Jesus keep us all in his grace.
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