Proclaim the good
news
The readings we have heard
today place us at the end of Jesus’ time among the disciples. Following his death on the cross, he had appeared
to them on numerous occasions and reassured them that what he had said about
rising from the dead had indeed come to pass. Finally, he had to leave them and ascend to
the Father. Before doing this though, he
told the disciples to go into all the
world and proclaim the good news.
Throughout the generations since
that day, the disciples have continued to fulfill this command. As a result, the Church that we know today: a
people of hope, a tradition of faith, and souls committed to loving as he has
loved us, continue to flourish throughout our world. If you’re like me, you might be tempted to
think that this was some kind of magical process; that the disciples left the
upper room and marched into the streets and new disciples just fell in line
behind them. Not so.
The truth of the matter is
that disciples don’t grow on trees. They
don’t just appear and join the band.
Human beings are naturally skeptical.
We have far too many questions about the unknown for such things to
happen automatically, and Jesus knows the fickle nature of our hearts. That’s why he told the disciples not to leave Jerusalem right away. Even though they may have been zealous to
proclaim the good news, Jesus knew that they needed to wait. Perhaps that’s the hardest thing for someone
who is chomping at the bit to get a job done: to have to wait, but Jesus knew
that Pentecost had to come before the disciples would be fully prepared for
their mission. Only then would the
Spirit within them give them the courage to speak their truth in its fullness.
In time, the disciples did go
out to the whole world to proclaim the good news. We see evidence of this in the second reading
today. After his encounter with the
believers at Ephesus, Paul wrote of his prayer for them, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ … may give
you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him. The work of making disciples starts with the
telling of our own story, the story of our own conversion, our own coming to
believe. This is a story of good news:
the news of our own realizations that God is with us at every moment of our
lives, from the moment of our birth, to the moment of our natural death, and
even beyond the grave, as we are then rewarded with the gift of life in all its
fullness.
As we come to believe this
good news, there are a number of others who accompany us through life, who
gather with us in the community of believers, who support us with their prayer
and example. There are also some
milestones to mark our progress. We call
these milestones Sacraments. The journey
begins with Baptism, but is also strengthened with the grace of Reconciliation
and fed with the Eucharist. Through the
grace of Matrimony, some are called to live in union with their spouses as
signs of God’s commitment to us, and the Sacrament of Orders allows others of
us to respond to a loving call to nourish the community as it comes to believe
the good news.
Each one of us seeks to
discover this good news in our lives. Each
time we celebrate the Eucharist, we gather to tell our story, to learn from the
Scripture and to encounter the Risen Lord Jesus. In the gathered assembly, and in the quiet of
private prayer, Jesus imparts a spirit of
wisdom and revelation to those who come to believe. As witnesses of this truth, we then go out
into the whole world to proclaim the good news.
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