He summoned the Twelve and began to send them out two by two

15 JULY (Mk 6,7-13)

The words Jesus addresses his disciples today, over the centuries have been differently interpreted and differently also lived. Even St. Paul and St. Peter interpret and live these words of Lord Jesus. Here is what they teach.

Working together, then, we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain. For he says: “In an acceptable time I heard you, and on the day of salvation I helped you.” Behold, now is a very acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation. We cause no one to stumble in anything, in order that no fault may be found with our ministry; on the contrary, in everything we commend ourselves as ministers of God, through much endurance, in afflictions, hardships, constraints, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, vigils, fasts; by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, in a holy spirit, in unfeigned love, in truthful speech, in the power of God; with weapons of righteousness at the right and at the left; through glory and dishonor, insult and praise. We are treated as deceivers and yet are truthful; as unrecognized and yet acknowledged; as dying and behold we live; as chastised and yet not put to death; as sorrowful yet always rejoicing; as poor yet enriching many; as having nothing and yet possessing all things. (2Cor 6,1-10).

So I exhort the presbyters among you, as a fellow presbyter and witness to the sufferings of Christ and one who has a share in the glory to be revealed. Tend the flock of God in your midst, (overseeing) not by constraint but willingly, as God would have it, not for shameful profit but eagerly. Do not lord it over those assigned to you, but be examples to the flock. And when the chief Shepherd is revealed, you will receive the unfading crown of glory. (1Pt 5,1-4).

Jesus himself, after his resurrection, entrusting the mission to the Twelve, did not abolish these words, he entrusts them to the Holy Spirit, so that He is the one to interpret them with divine authority along the course of the centuries. He must remember every thing according to the fullness of historical, and never absolute truth, since man is a historical, and not an absolute being.

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of truth, which the world cannot accept, because it neither sees nor knows it. But you know it, because it remains with you, and will be in you. I have told you this while I am with you. The Advocate, the holy Spirit that the Father will send in my name – he will teach you everything and remind you of all that (I) told you” (Jn 14,15-17.25-26). “When the Advocate comes whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth that proceeds from the Father, he will testify to me. And you also testify, because you have been with me from the beginning” (Jn 15,26-27). “I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now. But when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth. He will not speak on his own, but he will speak what he hears, and will declare to you the things that are coming. He will glorify me, because he will take from what is mine and declare it to you. Everything that the Father has is mine; for this reason I told you that he will take from what is mine and declare it to you” (Jn 16,12-15).

These words of Jesus are not absolute, they are historical. It is the Holy Spirit that must give them the correct interpretation according to time, place and circumstance, in history.

He summoned the Twelve and began to send them out two by two and gave them authority over unclean spirits. He instructed them to take nothing for the journey but a walking stick – no food, no sack, no money in their belts. They were, however, to wear sandals but not a second tunic. He said to them, “Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave from there. Whatever place does not welcome you or listen to you, leave there and shake the dust off your feet in testimony against them.” So they went off and preached repentance. They drove out many demons, and they anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.

If the Holy Spirit is not powerful, strong in us, we risk giving these words an absolute value, transforming them from evangelical into anti evangelical words, from words of witness into words of anti witness. It is very easy, without the Spirit of God in us, to disguise the whole Gospel, making it unacceptable, and not credible.

Virgin Mary, Mother of the Redemption; Angels, Saints make us strong in the Holy Spirit.