Fearless Sheep

“Go on your way;
behold, I am sending you like lambs among wolves.”

Luke 10:3

Our world today seems to be filled with well-prepared and strategic wolves and loss and confused sheep. We live in a world where Truth no longer matters, where human life is no longer regarded as sacred. Just in the City of Philadelphia this year nearly 250 (or more) innocent lives have been lost due to gun violence and other senseless acts. Who would have guessed that about 2000 years after the Resurrection, we would be living in a world where death is still seemingly winning?

From today’s First Reading, we hear in Third Isaiah the Lord telling the people to rejoice and exult. But the Israelites were returning to a Jerusalem that was no longer the same. It has become desolate, like a wasteland. It was not as glorious as it once was, there was no life, but God had told them to rejoice. Why? Because He will bring life once again.

Jesus, the Prince of Life, commissions 72 disciples to go out into the towns and villages to cure the sick and proclaim the Kingdom, warning them that they are being sent like sheep among wolves, yet to bring nothing! How can this make sense? One minute He tells them they are being sent out like defenseless sheep among hungry wolves and the next He tells them to not bring anything. On face value it does seem contradictory, but if we look closer, it really is not. Jesus is telling them to be like sheep, for sheep relies and depends entirely on their shepherd. They know that the shepherd will protect them from the wolves so they need not worry or fear. They are called to be the fearless sheep of the Good Shepherd.

The Lord further outlines what they should do — enter and stay and be gracious guests and if they are no longer welcomed to leave, shake off the dusk from the feet and keep moving, all while proclaiming the truth of the Kingdom. Brothers and sisters we are called to be fearless sheep, who are unafraid to walk in this world that is filled with hungry wolves. We are called to depend utterly and radically on God, His Word, and His Providence. God will provide. To do this, we only need to do one thing: put prayer first. We must put our relationship with God first, then all that we need will be given to us when we are ready to receive them.

We are fearless sheep not on our own accord, but we are the fearless sheep of God, the God who led the Israelites out of Egypt, the God who sent His only begotten Son into the world, and the God who raised His Son from the dead so that we might no longer live in fear for His Son has conquered all things, even death.

Working Through You

“The Lord stood by me and gave me strength,
so that through me the proclamation might be completed
and all the Gentiles might hear it.”

2 Timothy 4:17

Not too long after St. Paul penned his second letter to Timothy did he glorify God by his martyrdom. While imprisoned awaiting his death, the time when he was to meet the One he once persecuted, St. Paul acknowledged that it was the Lord strengthened him and it was the Lord who stood by him, not just in prison, but throughout his ministry. Undoubtedly, St. Paul did great works during his ministry, spreading the Good News to the Gentiles, converting the hearts of many, but St. Paul knew that it was the Lord who did the great works through him.

Today we celebrate the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, the two great Apostles who were instrumental in the propagation of the Faith in the early Church. These two men did not necessarily have clean records. St. Peter denied Christ and St. Paul persecuted Christ in the Christians. Yet, they were chosen to be messengers of the One whom one denied and the other persecuted. It was in being chosen that they realized the Lord had always been by them, strengthening them and encouraging them. God does not choose the strong or the most qualified, He simply chooses those whom He has called. And brothers and sisters, God has called you.

There is a special calling for each one of us. Some may say “Well I am not holy at all!” or “I have a lot of shortcomings; I am sure God has someone else better in mind…” But the answer is “No.” God does have others in mind, but they each too have their own unique calling. It is not our perfection or strengths that God sees; it is only our hearts that He see. He saw the repentant hearts of Peter and Paul and He loved them. God sees our hearts and He loves us, and He wants to work through us so that all peoples might come to know and experience His love and mercy. Will we let God work through us today?

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us!

It’s Always Been Him

“It was I who brought you up from the land of Egypt,
and who led you through the desert for forty years,
to occupy the land of the Amorites.”

Amos 2:10

Through the Prophet Amos, the Lord reminds the people who they were and how they go to where they were at the point. The people seemed to have forgotten about God and they were doing to others and even to each other what the Egyptians did to them. The people seemingly had forsaken their name sake and the One who led their ancestors out of slavery through the Red Sea dry shod. During the Exodus the Lord led them as a column of cloud or a pillar of fire and when the Holy of Holies was constructed His very own Presence was manifested there. The God who walked with them became irrelevant to them and they began to live as it it was themselves that have earned the comforts they enjoyed. But soon their sinful behaviors — not just because they abandoned the Lord, but also because of how they treated each other, as slaves, as foreigners, and as enemies — will meet their natural consequences. Their pride and their lack of faith will lead to their fall to the Assyrians and then the Babylonians, becoming slaves once again, and this time by their own choosing.

The Israelites forgot that it has always been the Lord who guided them, led them, protected them, and loved them. It was the Lord and His mercy and compassion towards them that sustained them. Yet, they refused to acknowledge this but instead subjected and submitted themselves to their own yokes, leading them to slavery and death. When we come to serve ourselves — the world calls this freedom, by the way — we really become slaves to ourselves. That is not freedom. A life of pride and self-indulgence is not “the good life,” but rather the fleeting life because what appeared so good and felt so pleasurable quickly fades. A life in service to others and to God, which the world calls silly, dumb, and stupid, is truly the good life, the life that is truly free, free because we live in a manner knowing that all that we have and all that we have experienced and all that is to come is a gift, unmerited and undeserved. When we come to see that all is gift and grace, we will be able to live without the yokes that cause us anxiety and fear because we will have realized that in all things and in all times, it has always been the Lord.

Brothers and sisters, do you know that it has always been Him? Whenever we look back in life and remember the moments of sadness and sorrow and disappointment and grief and at the same time recognize the very fact that we are here today and see how far we’ve come, do we pat ourselves on the back for being resilient because we got through it ourselves, or do we feel within our hearts a deep sense of gratitude to those who have helped us during those difficult times, realizing that it was all part of God’s plan to send them into our lives. It was not simply our grit or resilience or luck, it was Providence. May we remember today that it has always been the Lord.