Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (B), Conversations with Consequences Podcast, July 13, 2024

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Conversations with Consequences Podcast
Homily for the Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, B, Vigil
July 13, 2024

To listen to an audio recording of this short Sunday homily, please click below: 

The following text guided the homily: 

• This is Fr. Roger Landry and it’s a privilege for me to be with you as we enter into the consequential conversation the Risen Lord Jesus wants to have with each of us this Sunday as he sends out the apostles for the first time to proclaim his Gospel, with instructions that are meant to guide the way that we share in that same continuous mission of the salvation of the world. As the whole Church in the United States prepares for the National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis beginning this Wednesday, and prepare for the missionary phase of the Eucharistic Revival after the Congress’ completion, Jesus words will help us become more effective missionaries of Eucharistic knowledge, faith, gratitude, amazement, love and life.
• The essential starting point for our mission is that Jesus’ love for us was so great that not only did he want to save us, but he wanted to involve us in our own salvation and in the salvation of our family and friends, even those we don’t know. From the beginning of time, he wanted us to be co-redeemers with him. He could have stayed in our world until the end of time, physically, traversing every country himself. He did not have to ascend. But he wanted to ascend so that we could fulfill the mission he would give us, to bring the good news of salvation to the whole world. So from the beginning of his public ministry, not only did Jesus preach in word and deed, but he prepared us his disciples to do the same. He trained us to preach; he gave us his own authority to cure the sick and cast out unclean spirits. He formed us to be more and more like him, who himself was God the Father’s missionary. He did not merely state, “Do what I say,” but said “follow me,” and he wanted us to follow him in the mission he had received from the Father. That baton was passed to the apostles and first disciples. They passed it on to others, who in turn handed it to others. He hands to us anew this Sunday. Jesus trusted us enough to entrust to us his saving work.
• It’s important for us to grasp that Jesus commissions all of us as his missionaries. By our Baptism, and strengthened by our Confirmation, we’re called to share in Christ’s own prophetic work. This universal mission grew in stages. Jesus first trained the 12 and then sent them out (Mk 6:7-13). Then he trained 72 and sent them with the same instructions (Lk 10:1-12). Before he ascended into heaven, he instructed 500 on the mountainside and told them “Go out to the whole world and proclaim the Gospel, baptizing … and teaching them to carry out everything I have commanded you” (1 Cor 15:6; Mt 28:18-20). That mission continues down to this day and Jesus wants us — and in some sense needs us — to carry it on.
• The second point is that we’re not sent out with our own message or given the instruction to wing it. We’re sent out as ambassadors of Christ with his own message, the same message he himself preached. St. Mark writes that as soon as Jesus returned from his forty day fast in the wilderness, he came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God and saying, “The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the Good news” (Mk 1:15). Jesus states a fact and gives an imperative. Since the Kingdom of God is at hand, we are called to change our lives and base them on this Gospel. When Jesus sends out the 12, as we see in Sunday’s Gospel, it’s with the same message: “They went out off,” St. Mark says, “and preached repentance.” Jesus gave the same message to all the disciples before his ascension: “Repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things” (Lk 24:47-48). The fundamental message of Jesus is about our need for conversion, indeed a new life, and the great news that God mercifully wants to give us that life. Jesus sent his first disciples out with that message, that good news, of the call to turn away from sin and live in the kingdom of God. Likewise, he sends each of us with that message, as sheep in the midst of wolves, in the context of a culture in great need of conversion in so many ways. To be credible missionaries, though, we must first enflesh this message. It’s no surprise that among his first missionaries, Jesus had chosen some great sinners — Peter, whose first words to the Lord were, “Depart from me, O Lord, for I am a sinful man” (Lk 5:8 ); Matthew, a hated tax-collector who used to sin by shaking down his own people; and later Paul, who once terrorized, tortured and presided over the killing of Christians. They were able to preach that conversion from sins was possible and that God has indeed come to reconcile sinners. They were living testimonies of the salvation Christ sent them to preach to others. They went from sinners to saints. The Lord calls us preach this same message not only with our lips but with our life.
• That leads us directly to how Jesus wants us to deliver the message. He gives several specifics in the Gospel: “He began to send them out two by two… and instructed them to take nothing for their 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.” Jesus’ point was not to give the Church a particular dress code to last until the end of time, but to form his disciples so that their message would be credible. He wanted us to preach the Gospel just as he himself was accustomed to deliver it, with simplicity of life. He wanted to cultivate in us the virtues of the Kingdom, so that we would be able to preach this message not just with words but with our whole bearing. We were to show that we take seriously what we are announcing, the presence of a God who tells us not to worry about what we are to eat, drink, wear or where we are to sleep, because God knows what we need before we ask for it and cares for us more than he cares for the lilies of the field and the birds of the sky. By telling us, “Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave,” he was instructing us to be grateful for the hospitality given, rather than looking for a better deal. By mentioning, “Whatever place does not welcome you, … leave there and shake the dust off your feet in testimony against them,” he was teaching us not to be weighed down with bad memories or nurse their wounds from one place to the next. If we experience rejection, he wants us to let it go, to have a fresh start and not to have the good news of great joy masked by the sadness of a previous bad experience. By sending us out two-by-two, he was also helping us to learn how to grow in love in their missionary journeys. Pope St. Gregory the Great 1400 years ago taught that the reason why Jesus sent the apostles and disciples out in pairs was so that they could learn how to love each other, to be patient with each other, to learn how to forgive each other each day. Most of the disciples Jesus sends out in pairs are married, and they have a mission by their simplicity of life, their dependence of God, their acceptance of his providential will, to give witness to their families, neighborhoods, and cities and towns that the Good News is real, and has filled them with joy. He wanted them to proclaim by their joy, the source of their joy; by their love for each other, the One who loved them first and commanded them to love like Him; by their poverty of spirit, that their treasure was in God, and so forth. Likewise the Lord wants each of us to incarnate the message we proclaim. If we hope to be credible ambassadors of Christ, we need to practice what we preach.
• The final question concerns to whom are we sent to proclaim the message: to the whole world, beginning with the one we look at in the mirror each day, and, then after we’ve heard the message and tried to put it into practice, to those with whom we come into regular contact. We’re called to proclaim the good news of repentance and the forgiveness of sins to our family, to friends, to colleagues at work, to fellow students, even, when the occasion arises, to religious, to priests, bishops and even the Holy Father. In some ways, this mission to go to the lost sheep we know is more challenging than going to dangerous missionary territories overseas because it requires profound conversion, since those closest to us can most readily see if our actions contradict the words we try to proclaim. We can’t get away with subtle arguments and beautiful words, but we have to radiate to them the salvation we’ve received from Christ and his zeal for their souls, we have to love them into conversion. At the same time, however, those closet to us are the ones to whom, with God’s help, we might be the most effective instruments God can use to bring them the message of conversion and salvation. We know them. We know what buttons to push and not to push far better than any foreign missionary might. If they’re away from the practice of the faith, or have never practiced, then we will also have better access to them than any priest, nun, or missionary. In involving us in his mission, Jesus wants to give us the joy of seeing his salvation dawn in others, in becoming the greatest benefactors anyone will ever have, because we are the ones called by God to bring them the greatest treasure.
• This week as we begin the National Eucharistic Congress and prepare to commit to being missionaries of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist, we will also be bringing to conclusion an historic Eucharistic apostolate that has been taking place over 65 days: the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage. Since the Vigil of Pentecost on May 18, four different teams of missionaries have been literally transporting Jesus from the Atlantic and Pacific, from the northern and southern borders of the country, to Indianapolis, encountering more than 100,000 people along the way, and showing that Jesus Christ is alive, that the Kingdom of God is still at hand because the King reigns in the Eucharist, and inviting others to join us in the Eucharistic pilgrimage that constitutes the Christian life. One of the most fundamental aspects of our Eucharistic mission is to proclaim unabashedly that Jesus Christ is with us, and to show by our infectious faith in him that life with him is so much richer. As we thank Jesus for all the graces of the last 65 days, we ask him to help us all learn how to proclaim him with faith and love, with courage and effectiveness, all our days.
• This Sunday, the same Jesus who sent out the apostles in the Gospel comes to be with us in our Churches. He comes to us in the Eucharist so that we might enter into his kingdom through Holy Communion and be strengthened to go forth to announce that kingdom, filling people with hope that God-with-us is still with us and the great hope that if we repent and believe, if we draw close to him in the Sacraments, then we will experience the fulfillment of the great promise of his kingdom that will know no end! This is what we will be celebrating at the Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis. This is what we’re meant to celebrate and live all our days.

The readings for today’s Mass were: 

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