Readings for July 13-14, Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time
By Fr. Jack Treloar, SJ | For On Mission
In the Gospel this week, we hear of Jesus sending out the disciples two by two to preach. In this passage, he gives them instructions concerning the manner in which they should proceed. They are to travel as poor people who have nothing — no food, no sack, no money, no second tunic. They were to take a walking stick and wear sandals.
This manner of travel has been imitated for centuries by people on pilgrimage. Their journey, then, becomes a manifestation of complete dependence on the goodness of God.
More important than the travel, however, was the content of their message. Mark tells us that they preached repentance. The notion of repentance needs some rehabilitation in our own time. We have come to use this term almost exclusively as a penitential act and do not remember the true motive for repentance.
We do two things when we repent. First, we acknowledge that there are aspects of our lives that are not in accord with the manner God wishes us to live. Second, repentance expresses our desire to draw closer to God. Such a desire is the more important aspect of repentance. When the Gospel tells us that the disciples preached repentance, we understand their message in this twofold meaning of repentance.
The reading from Ephesians shows what happens when we truly repent. The Father has blessed us in Christ. Our repentance shows that we have been chosen to be holy by the Father before the foundation of the world.
In his Apostolic Exhortation “On the Call to Holiness in Today’s World” (Gaudete et Exsultate),” Pope Francis distinguishes between heroic holiness, such as that manifested by the saints, and everyday holiness that characterizes the lives of most of us.
Often it is the little things that count as lived holiness. When we are kind to another person, we manifest holiness based in repentance. When we help an elderly person with housework, lawn care or shopping we do acts of holiness. All such acts are holy when done out of a desire to draw closer to God. These acts are our way of preaching the Gospel in our own times and places. In this sense, we are very much like the disciples whom Jesus sent out in pairs to preach the Gospel.
We may not drive out demons or cure the sick, but our treatment of others in accord with the commandment to love our neighbor as ourselves is exactly the Gospel message lived out in everyday holiness.
This brings us back to Ephesians.
In Christ we, “…have heard the word of truth, the gospel of (our) salvation, and have believed in him, (we) were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, which is the first installment of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s possession, to the praise of his glory” (Eph 1:14).
The disciples preached repentance that was so much more than admission of sinfulness. Their preaching of repentance introduced people to a radical new way of living in accord with love of God and love of neighbor.
Fr. Treloar, an assistant director at Jesuit Retreat House in Oshkosh, has served as a professor, lecturer, author and academic administrator.
The readings for Sunday, July 14, can be found at Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time | USCCB.