Feb 3: Go, You are Sent!

Raffaello Sanzio: Eight Apostles
Woodner Collection, New York, c. 1514

Thursday of the Fourth Week in Ordinary Time

Gospel: Mk 6:7-13

Jesus called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. . . So they went out and proclaimed that all should repent. They cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them (NRSV, Mk 6:7,12-13).

Father in heaven, everyone who shares your life is endowed with divine power to drive out evil and to heal. Your Son Jesus, the Word made flesh, summoned the twelve and sent them out two by two. Your same begotten but uncreated Word, who always presses in upon us, also calls every one of us and sends us out to preach and to minister to those victimized by evil and to heal those who are sick. We celebrate this commission to ministry by our baptism and confirmation in our faith.

Just as you, Lord, never take over in our lives and act for us, so our charge is not to do for others but rather to awaken in them the life and the power that is always available to them if they would only accept it and allow it to transform them. While all are called to mediate divine life and power to one another, in the one mediator who is Jesus Christ the Word, finally each of us is responsible for their own actions, for their own response in faith.

Regardless of how we may fail one another or how circumstances may isolate us, every moment is the saving moment. Forgiveness of sin and spiritual healing, mediated by every situation, are there finally for all who say “yes” to them.

Physical healing is often a tangible manifestation of the deeper healing that is spiritual and touches on our relationship with you, Lord, and others. None of us can escape physical death, Father, but healed and whole in our shared life with you and our sisters and brothers, it can become an hour of glory. Having accepted your life and made it our own, Lord, we are, in the end, healed by our own power in this life for life in the world to come. As Jesus rose from the dead by his own power so also shall all who believe in him.

Father, grateful for the gift of your life, for the forgiveness and healing that we have experienced, may we too accept the commission given to the twelve to go out and to mediate your divine life to others by awakening in them a lively faith and acceptance of your gift of life and power.

Through Christ Our Lord. Amen.