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A WORD FROM THE PASTOR
Something is Asked of Every Person
The mayor of a certain town decided to hold a harvest festival. All, without exception, were invited. The mayor himself offered to provide the food. To ensure that there would be adequate wine, each guest was asked to bring along a bottle of white wine. The wine would be poured into a huge cask from which all could drink. The day of the festival arrived. Everyone in town showed up. Thanks to the generosity of the mayor, there was an abundance of food. Each guest duly arrived with a bottle of wine and poured it into the cask.
When all was ready the mayor went to the cask. An aide tapped it and filled the mayor's glass. Holding up the glass, the mayor said, "I declare the festival open." Then he took a drink out of the glass only to discover that it was not wine but water. Instead of bringing a bottle of wine, each guest had brought a bottle of water, thinking, "My contribution won't be missed." The festival was ruined!
What is the point of this story? Sending the apostles as ambassadors to preach the "Good News" and to heal the sick, Jesus, in today's Gospel, reminds us that we are to be messengers of the Good News. He has given working hands to raise the fallen, feet to seek out the lost, ears to listen to the lonely, a tongue to speak words of sympathy and encouragement to those weighed down by sorrow, pain and failure to every person. In this way, Jesus may work through us to heal, strengthen, comfort and teach on earth in our day. The grace is given t o every baptized person to be God's ambassador.
A visible phenomenon in the Church is that only a few in number exercise their baptismal call in various ways. It is not an exaggeration to say that only some individuals are found in many ministries of the Church on various occasions. Someone may think 'so and so has been doing that job for so long, why must I grab it?' Remember that person is waiting for you to take up that job.
A group of young people from many nations was discussing how the Gospel might be spread. They talked of propaganda, of literature, of all the ways of disseminating the Gospel in this century. Then a girl from Africa spoke. "When we want to take Christianity to one of our villages," she said, "we don't send them books. We take a Christian family and send them to live in the village and they make the village Christian by living there." A Christian family who witnesses Christ's values brings countless souls to Christ! Do we belong to a community that is known for being good news?
It is a great challenge to us all to be active, not passive followers of Christ; to be not only receivers but also givers. Something is asked of every person. And everybody's contribution, no matter how small, is important. For the forest to be green the individual trees must be green.
In the Service of the Lord,
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