Many of you have certainly not been able to wait these days. Finally, there is a time of free time, rest and holidays, when we all have the opportunity to fill our lives with something beautiful, new and valuable. So does Jesus in today’s gospel. It enriches the life of the apostles with something new and unknown. Until now, the apostles had walked with him, accompanied him, led him and guided him. But suddenly he entrusts them to try to preach the gospel themselves. But replacing a Master like Jesus was a very difficult task, and therefore we will notice how the Lord equipped them for this task. He gave them power over evil spirits. And to make this one armament stand out more prominently, it shows them not to take with them bread, no pockets, no money, no two clothes.
What does this power mean? He gave them the ability to fight injustice, dislike, enmity, envy, hatred, and all the evil that makes life in this world bitter and unbearable. And how did he give them power over evil spirits? He filled them with his Spirit, his Love. God’s love and power is a powerful weapon against the evils of this world. In order to show on the outside that they are equipped for the apostolic journey, he sends them in pairs. Sv. Gregor the Great says that at least two are needed for love. By sending them in pairs, it indicates that God’s message cannot be proclaimed otherwise, only by love. He who is an egoist and wants to love only himself, let him not bother to proclaim Christ at all, because the egoist is the opposite of Jesus. We, too, have a duty to proclaim God’s message to the people. We have a duty to apostle, because at baptism we have received participation in the priesthood of Christ, and at confirmed we have been commissioned to be apostles of the Christian faith.
In a Catholic magazine, a young man describes how he realized this duty. His good mother had once told him about faith, and that faith had long been hidden in him like a glow under the ashes. Only once, when he was 17 years old and came out of the confessional, did he feel such peace and happiness in the soul as he had never known before. He began to read religious literature intensively. He studied the evidence of God’s existence in order to defend his faith from his classmates and to teach the ignorant. His ideal was to fight for God. He discussed it in all directions, defended himself, and often attacked those who denied God. He wanted to reveal the path to the hidden treasure, which he discovered in his heart, to others as well. But he soon noticed that his words sounded empty, because people did not love those who taught, and they did not like him. And so the initial zeal began to decline with him, and later grew into a doubt as to whether God really existed, when there was so little interest in him and when all the arguments he presented fell like peas on a wall. He thought about it for a long time until he realized that it was necessary to apostle in another way. He no longer fought against anyone, no longer gathered evidence of God’s existence, no longer used excerpts from learned books, but simply radiated God’s love from himself. This is how he writes about himself: “The only thing people can’t resist is love. God’s love can win every human being.
Therefore, I want to be penetrated by the love of Jesus. I want to be nailed to the cross of love with him so that he can repeat this sentence through me: When I am exalted to the cross, I will draw everyone to myself. ”And in this love he renewed his life. He worked at the post office at counter no. 11. In the morning, he always united with Jesus at Holy Mass. Then he went to his partition to radiate Jesus’ love for people in his work. Although he had a long line of people in front of him, he never showed impatience or nervousness, he was kind and kind. He saw Jesus in everyone and wanted to serve him. To one he attributes the area code to the letter, to another he lends a pen, adhesive tape, to another he fills in a forgotten field, he gives a telephone directory. He is patient with an old woman who cannot find glasses to sign a pension. Only then did he become convinced that the best way of apostles among men was to radiate God’s love from himself. For everyone who distributes God to people must do so in the form of love, and thus actually proves that there is a God who is love. And as he adds, that is the meaning of the true apostolate.
The founder of the modern apostolate of love, Chiara Lubich, specifically outlines how we work towards such an activity. She says that three communions are needed for our apostolate: The first is at Holy Mass in the worship of the word. When we listen to scripture readings and discipline, then we receive Jesus and are filled with His Word. God’s word is for us, what is a holy robe for the monks. In God’s word, we must be clothed in our daily lives if we want to apostle. This is our spiritual habit. The second communion is also in Mass, when we receive the Lord in the holy host. She reminds us of Christ’s love on the cross. Jesus is breaking for others. When we receive him, we are filled with his love so that we can break for others. The third communion is outside the church. We try to see Jesus in every neighbor, according to his words: Whatever you do to one of my youngest brothers, you will do to me. That is why we try to do something good to Jesus in our brothers, and thus we actually accept Jesus in the form of man – this is also the culmination of our apostolate.The priest invites us to him at the end of the Holy Mass when he says, “Go in the name of God!” we have apostles in the name of God. Thus, it would still be required to add: “Go in the name of God to apostle!” This is how thousands of apostles work in the world today. Let us therefore accept the offer of Jesus Christ to the apostolate. Everything else in our lives will one day lose its meaning and disappear, only God’s love is indelible and eternal. Giving it to people is the most beautiful ornament and the highest value of today’s life.
K
