Luke 9:1-6
Enkindle in Them the Fire of Your Love archives
Gospel Reflection for Wednesday, the 25th Week of
the Year
“He sent them to proclaim the Kingdom of God
and to heal the sick.”
The gospel for Wednesday, the 25th Week of the
Year, gives us a picture of how Jesus authorized
his apostles to proclaim God’s Kingdom and to
heal the sick: they travelled lightly and on
foot in dirt roads. Jesus told them not to take
anything for the journey, neither walking stick,
sack, food, money, nor a second tunic. And his
injunction to shake the dust from their feet
against those who would not accept them gives us
the idea that they may have travelled on foot,
with sandals, and probably in the heat of the
Middle Eastern sun that made the ground dusty.
Jesus gave authority to His apostles to drive
out demons and to cure the sick. Although there
is no gospel account which relates any of the
apostles driving out demons, we can safely
guess that it may be in the same style as what
Jesus did: commanding the evil spirits to come
out of people. As regards curing the sick,
we have an account in the Acts of the Apostles
which showed Peter curing the lame man and made
him walk again. This Peter did in the same
style and spirit of Jesus - with a touch of
humility saying “silver and gold have I none,
but what I have I give to you…in the name
of Jesus…rise up and walk!” This healing
incident by the apostle Peter can give us
a clue as to how the apostles and Jesus’
other disciples healed: “in the name of
Jesus….”
Although not a Catholic book, a book of M.
Scott Peck speaks about the hope for healing
human evil in the book, “People of the Lie”.
This book presents evil in our humanity as
something in need of healing. So it is not
only physical, mental, emotional, or our
human psyches that need healing, but also
our spirit and our souls. This insight
written by psychotherapist Peck helps us to
view those who commit an evil with more
compassion and with less judgmental attitudes.
Just like any ailment, evil can be seen as
a sickness of the spirit and of the soul.
From this perspective, we can integrate the
Christian attitude in approaching evil or
anything bad when we see it: with more
compassion and with greater understanding.
Jesus authorizing the twelve apostles in
the gospel is an “authorizing” also to us
by way of our being part of the Church.
Our way of being “on mission” like the
apostles would be much different since we
do not need to travel on foot nor do we
have to “expel demons”. By our mere acts
of kindness or by our healing presence and
words, we are “on mission”. Our societies
are very much broken by the many evils that
afflict it. And families suffer greatly
because it is the most vulnerable to the
ills that afflict it from many angles.
For us who commit ourselves to the love
of God, we can contribute to proclaiming
the Kingdom by being a healing presence
to an already broken world, without
forgetting that we too need healing from
Christ so that we may be His instrument
of peace.
