Sunday Reflection with Fr Robin Gibbons - 7 July 2013

Fr Robin Gibbons

Fourteenth Sunday in ordinary Time, Year c

The Lord sends out seventy two people, thirty six pairs, to prepare others to receive him when he came afterwards. In his name they were commissioned to behave in a simple and itinerant manner, travel lightly, bless people with peace, cure the sick, exorcise those possessed and proclaim that the Kingdom of God is near. In this image we can see the pastoral technique of the later Church, catechizing in stages, much as we do when we prepare and instruct others who are journeying to faith and then the practical side of faith, loving service of others in caring, healing, reconciling and identifying with those who have little by their example and lifestyle.

There is something about those early men and women that we need to emulate, after all it was the example of the early community loving in these ways that distinguished them from others. Perhaps that is what Pope Francis is suggesting in his example of living simply. As Christians we cannot do without money, we need the basic necessities of life, but our values have to be those of the Kingdom!

Paul in the reading from the letter to the Galatians, encourages us to proclaim in a joyful manner the saving gift of the cross of Christ. But there is also the living cross Jesus asks to take up each day. That means facing the more difficult aspects of life, and in our own Christian faith learn to bear one another’s burdens in love. This is what he means by saying, what matters for the Christian is that we ’ become an altogether new creature’.

This may be tough because it demands from us self sacrifice, often putting others first, but it is also the sacrifice of those who labour for the harvest, who see beyond the immediate to the hope and promise of the Kingdom. That is the virtue of ‘hope’ which our world so badly needs, so aptly expressed by the wonderful images from the prophet Isaiah. No matter what life may be like at the moment, we must remember the Kingdom of Heaven is with us, our God is always with us and that enveloping us are gifts from the Spirit which will bring us to that peace which the world cannot give. What we can pray with joy are those wonderful words from our psalm: ’Blessed be God who did not reject my prayer nor withhold his love from me’.

Fr Robin Gibbons is an Eastern Rite Chaplain for the Melkite Greek Catholics in Britain.