14th Sunday of the Year

I read this reflection in one of the homily books I read and I like it. I want to share this with you so that you may be able to reflect too with your own life. I don’t know if you like this or not. The author said that when we are applying for a job, we present our best credential to the employers: we are graduates of these prestigious and exclusive schools; that we graduated as summa cum laude; that our previous jobs were like these and we present known people as our references so that employers may impress. In other words, we present ourselves that we are the best of all the best.

On the other hand, if we are employers or owners of a certain company and we want to pirate good personnel from other companies, we also want to make good proposals to the ones we want to hire. We say to them: “I will double your salary, I will give more benefits. After one year, you will be promoted. “In other words, we tell those we hire we are the best.

Jesus is different. In today’s gospel, Jesus is asking and hiring, too, men to become His disciples and prospective missionaries of His word. Jesus tells them: “Come and follow me so that you will be persecuted, so that you will be tried in court; so that you will live simply and walk humbly, so that you will have a difficult life. If you are very lucky, you will be killed too and you will work for me not only 8 hours a day but 24 hours a day.

When we apply for a job to Jesus Christ, we do not say: “I am the best, so hire me,” but rather we say: “I am the worst. Make something good out of me.” That is why, very few of us apply for a job with Christ as missionaries of His word because we experience not pleasure but pressure and we could say: “We are the best,” but rather we say: “We are the worst of all.” We could not announce to all that we are saints but rather sinners.

As Jesus sends the seventy-two other disciples to preach His word of salvation, He also calls each one of us to share in the task of evangelization. Whatever be our situation and status in life, whether we are parents, teachers, employees, employers, professionals or students, we are also being sent by Christ to be missionaries of His word of salvation. It is wrong to say that preaching the word belongs exclusively to nuns, priests and bishops, religious brothers or sisters. In that sense, we are the ones saved and you are not. The Evangelii Nuntiandi of Paul VI that the evangelized becomes now the evangelizers had clearly stated. Actually, by virtue of our baptism and confirmation, we share in the mission of Christ by imitating Him and by proclaiming through the words of mouth and the deeds of our actions.

The Vatican II document entitled Apostolicam Actuositatem no. 6 says: “There are innumerable opportunities open to the laity for the exercise of their apostolate of making the gospel known and men holy. The very testimony of their Christian lives and good works done in a supernatural spirit have the power to draw men to belief and to God.”

In addition to that, Jesus in our gospel says: “The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few…” Today, the harvest consist of:

  1. Those people who have not yet heard of Christ. According to a statistical survey, that out of the six billion population of the world, 33% of these are Christians and 20% of these 33% are Catholics. Accordingly, 77% of the world population are non-Christians or uninfluenced by the gospel.
  2. Those people who have heard of Christ but has no opportunity to know Him better.
  3. Those people who have known and heard Christ, baptized and became Christians but they do not practice what they had learned and received. They relinquished the religion and became nominal and cafeteria Catholic Christians. Who are they? They are your neighbors, members of your own family, friends and many more.

Some people say that there are people who are corrupt because our country is poor. But is it not the other way around? Is not corruption the reason why our country is still poor? According to estimates, money losses due to corruption turn to billion of pesos every year.

So my dear brothers and sisters in Christ you are not simply a father, a mother, a lawyer, a doctor, an engineer, a businessman, an employee, governor, mayor or councilors. But you are supposed to be a Christian father, a Christian mother, a Christian lawyer, a Christian doctor and many more. What is the use of being Christians if by being so does not really make any difference in our lives and in the people around us.

At the end let us reflect on this: What do we expect as missionaries of Jesus Christ? Do we expect blessings? Be more realistic my dear friends. Expect the cross. Let us help in bringing people to the Kingdom by being known as Christians before anything else.