15th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year B Theme Empowering for Specific Mission 15-07-12

15th Sunday in Ordinary Time year B 15-07-12 Theme: Empowering for a specific Mission 1st Reading Amos 7:12-15 Yahweh chooses Amos with a specific purpose. 2nd Reading Ephesians 1:3-14 we have been chosen from eternity for a purpose that is to gain eternal kingdom. Gospel Mark 6:7-13 Mission of the twelve. God chooses the weak to empower them to be strong for his mission. As Mother Theresa so beautifully said God qualifies the unqualified. He sees the goodness not the sins. We read so many stories everyday in the newspapers. We usually are keen to share such news with the friends and seek opinions and express our views on it. The modern media oftentimes does not report good things easily. It sensationalizes the some abnormal issues in such a way they become instant salable items. That is how the media remains rich in the way of commerce and poor in moral values. We have recently been witnessing the Delhi high court verdict on the homosexuality between two consenting adults. Though the church has always held that we empathize with these people but the church cannot sanction these unnatural behaviors as norms of normal behavior. Though the society may talk and try to bring forward many arguments, even court verdicts or from the standpoint of psychology the unnatural tendency cannot become a natural behavior. But the natural reality cannot be substituted by aberration in the character of a human being. Now is the time to be testifying to the truth we have experienced. We can empathically counsel such aberration in and around our lives. We have to prophetically stand for the values of the kingdom which are so beautifully brought in today three readings. Because like Amos he may some times uproot us even without our realizing this fact are we ready? Let us try to examine them meditatively. The three readings of today are indicative of a personal mission for each person. We are brought face to face with prophet Amos who is neither a professional prophet nor is he a disciple of a qualified prophet. Amaziah, who is a priest of Bethel, taunts Amos to prove his missionary qualification as a prophet. Usually professional prophets used to use their knowledge some how to impress upon the kings to earn their livelihood. But Amos does not do such acts. In the first part of the challenge he is called a seer which is a very low grading of a prophet’s identity by all standards. Amos proclaims himself to be only a person who belongs to the profession of herd’s man ship. He also identifies himself as a person who tends the sycamore-fig trees. It is like we have people who tap the rubber trees. Here they enhance the sycamore fruit to ripen faster by pinching it. We live in tribal area and the tribal people have a method of making the fruit ripen faster by pricking it by nails to make it ripe faster. So Amos must have been doing the same type of job like the tribal people. But then God has some other plan for this rustic man of the wild. In the second reading we find how we have been created to be happily residents of a heavenly city. Now Paul is trying to enumerate such characteristics of a person who is a citizen of heaven. He tries to prove his argument by making us members to Christ’s redemptive activity. Paul tells the Ephesians how the sinful condition has caused Jesus to come into the world to redeem us through his suffering and passion death and resurrection to give us an opening to the heavenly kingdom. The Gospel tells us to be depending on God’s providence for our daily needs. When we have accepted the gift of faith like the disciples we have to be relying on the instructions of Jesus Christ. He tells us like he does to the disciples we have to be men/women who trust in the divine providence. He will take care of all our needs if we honestly try to extend the values of the kingdom. Healing is a very essential determining character of a responsible disciple, who goes around announcing the kingdom values, and in the process that which hinders this value mainly sickness which is the result of sin has to be healed with the power God gives each one of us to heal. We see many of us have this inherent charisma which allows us to be dealing with sickness and illness. Though modern society has many of healing professions, like doctors and other allied professions like nursing and hospital related facilities. Though these institutions are at our service, we still have to be depending on the power of prayer and trust in the divine intervention to be healed. So the quality of the sacrament of healing or the sacrament of anointing of the sick becomes relevant for a missionary. We have ample opportunities to be using this talent of healing where we are employed we can be elements of salt, light and leaven by being able to give hope to people who are often seeking fast relief. We have to tell people as Christians we are fully for professional institutions of healing; we still believe God can heal us through his personal intervention through these institutions. This will enable us to be witnesses for the mission God has entrusted us. Let us prophetically live our vocation as believing people who exercise the God given talents of sensitivity to be at the service of people who are close to us. In our offices, institutions, people who meet us causally who relate to us because they find us listening to them. This is what happens when be become sensitive to the call of God which may come at any moment of our lives, like Amos. Some times our life in this world become so engrossed in the realities of this world we become deaf to the realities of heaven. Don’t you think this should be our prime concern? Let this Sunday invitation to meditate on our mission may make us Catholics who are alive to the spirit of the lord with invites us to follow him closely in our daily life. Wishing all of you a very happy Sunday. Yours ever in the divine word, Fr.Juze Vaz svd