THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS AT HAND FOR YOU

2 Tm 4,10-17b; Ps 144; Lk 10,1-9
18 OCTOBER
Jesus does not send his disciples into the world to say the mystery of the kingdom, announcing its coming. They have to go to say the kingdom and also to show it accomplished in their person. It can manifest itself present in the world in many ways, even with miracles, signs and wonders. But there is a universal way, effective for every time and place. This mode is the perfect exemplariness in everything. It is our whole life interwoven with obedience to every Word of Jesus the Lord. This path is highly recommended by St. Paul. Here is how He manifests it to the Corinthians.

For the love of Christ impels us, once we have come to the conviction that one died for all; therefore, all have died. He indeed died for all, so that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised. Consequently, from now on we regard no one according to the flesh; even if we once knew Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know him so no longer. So whoever is in Christ is a new creation: the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come. And all this is from God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and given us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting their trespasses against them and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. So we are ambassadors for Christ, as if God were appealing through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who did not know sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him. 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, labours, 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 dishonour, 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 5,14-21; 6,3-10).

According to the Gospel of Luke, in their first mission, how must the seventy-two say and manifest the kingdom of God? First of all, praying incessantly and without interruption so that the Lord sends workers to his harvest. Persevering prayer is the first sign that we believe in the kingdom of God. No one might say and manifest according to truth the kingdom from a false faith in the kingdom. True faith and true mission. False faith and false mission. The second is the man with the gift of peace. The before of the missionary’s coming and the after will have to be different. The difference is given by the gift of peace. Thirdly with the explicit announcement that the kingdom is near. The three things must become one thing in the heart of the missionary. One prays, gives and announces.

After this the Lord appointed seventy (-two) others whom he sent ahead of him in pairs to every town and place he intended to visit. He said to them, “The harvest is abundant but the labourers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out labourers for his harvest. Go on your way; behold, I am sending you like lambs among wolves. Carry no money bag, no sack, no sandals; and greet no one along the way. Into whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this household.’ If a peaceful person lives there, your peace will rest on him; but if not, it will return to you. Stay in the same house and eat and drink what is offered to you, for the labourer deserves his payment. Do not move about from one house to another. Whatever town you enter and they welcome you, eat what is set before you, cure the sick in it and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God is at hand for you.’

If one of the three modes that are also the essence of the mission is missing, there is no true evangelizing mission. Either because the missionary’s faith is lacking, or because there is no difference between the before and the after or because there is not even any speaking about the kingdom.

Mother of Jesus, Angels and Saints make every Christian a true missionary of the kingdom of God.