In our day, the Blessed Mother is trying to gather up her faithful remnant to be used to bring others to Christ her Son and so give hope to a sick and dying world.

Mark 6;7-13. 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time. July 13th, 2015

In last week’s Gospel from St. Mark, we heard how Jesus encountered his mistrusting townsfolk in his hometown of Nazareth. They thought they knew Jesus well because they had lived with him for thirty years, but they didn’t really know him at all. They heard of the miracles Jesus performed in other places, but in their midst, Jesus could work no miracles because of their lack of faith.

And so, after giving us an example of unbelief in last weeks Gospel, immediately in today’s Gospel, St. Mark gives us an example of faith, the faith of the apostles. Remember St. Mark writes his Gospel in order to strengthen our faith. And so, in today’s Gospel, Jesus sees the faith of his apostles strengthening, and so sends them out in order that He can, through them, catch souls.

These first disciples were not unlike us. When they first met Jesus, the disciples where slow to understand, they usually just didn’t get it. They were weak and poor, but they had a quality deeper than their human frailty- they had hearts that were open to the working of God’s divine grace. This grace would produce in them a living faith, one that would slowly grow and deepen. Their trust in Jesus would become stronger and they eventually would fall on their knees in adoration before Jesus, as their true Lord and the true and living God, offering their lives totally to Him and witnessing to the true faith with their very lives.

In today’s gospel, Jesus sends these very weak souls out to preach his message of repentance and to heal the sick, which primarily means to heal and save souls from sin and its deadly effect—eternal death and separation from God and one another. Think about it, such unqualified men going out for such important work as the salvation of souls. (If it had been up to us, we would not have chosen such men as the apostles for such important work). And yet, not only does Jesus send this sorry bunch out to bring others to the true faith, He tells them to take hardly anything with them.

They are to take only a walking stick and sandals, but no food, no sack, no money, no change of clothes. Jesus here is trying to teach them an important lesson in the life of faith. The apostles would have to cut their dependence and trust in themselves and begin to rely on their faith and trust in Jesus alone. And so, Jesus sends them out without any extra provisions all in order that the apostles could learn to trust that God, in His divine providence, would provide for everything needed to support their life and their mission.

Just as He taught his first disciples, Jesus is also trying to teach us today as well. And so, we need to ask God to grant us the grace to imitate the faith and the trust of these disciples. We must live our faith by asking God to help us to trust Him more to provide what we are lacking, materially speaking and spiritually speaking; in other words, to trust in His divine Providence. This trust in God’s Divine Providence and care over us is first of all an interior attitude of faith.

In light of faith, the question for each of us today is, “Do we really believe Jesus is God and as God has the power not only to save us but also to do great things through us, to continue His work to heal and to save souls. Do we believe that this God is available to us by being truly present for us in His Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity in the Hoy Eucharist physically present as the very source of our Faith, Hope and Love. And because of this faith in His Eucharistic Presence, do we truly Hope in God by entrusting everything, everything to Him. Faith in Holy Eucharist as the True and Living God, leads us to hope in God.

Hope as a theological virtue really means to have trust, or to have confidence in God. So do we hope in God to take care of us, even if everything we have, everything we depend upon on this earth was taken away from us? Do we have the hope we need so that even though the walls may fall around us and everything we have be taken from us, we will not despair, because we have a strong faith that our Heavenly Father loves us and will never, ever, abandon us? And do we have the hope and trust to completely offer ourselves, and everything we have and posses to Jesus with total love and total abandonment. Jesus I trust in You, help my lack of trust. Please help me to trust in you more!

In our day, the darkness and loss of hope in our world is not coming primarily from terrorism. It is coming from an illusionary ideal of self-dependency and the idea that we can build an earthly utopia and so save ourselves apart from God and His grace and help which come to us through His Catholic Church and her Incredible Sacraments. These Sacraments of the Church are the source of all grace and mercy for the world; especially the Blessed of all Sacraments, the Holy Eucharist, because is the source of all graces and mercy and the others Sacraments flow from it because the Holy Eucharist is
Jesus and His pierced heart the source of all mercy and grace for the world).

In the last 100 years or so, the Blessed Mother as been appearing all over the world telling us, her children, that we must turn back to God and His Holy Church and realize we are absolutely dependent on Him. She is reminding us that we are too much like little children who think they don’t need their parents help. She is warning us that we must turn back to God and trust Him for all we need. She is telling us that if we continue to trust in all of our possessions and our self-dependency, God will take these away from us, just like a good Father. And He will do this in order to teach us the truth…that we can’t take care of ourselves, that we absolutely need God and His Church for peace on this earth and in the life to come, for peace in our hearts. In our day, the Blessed Mother is trying to gather up her faithful remnant to be used to bring others to Christ her Son and so give hope to a sick and dying world.

And so through His Mother, Jesus wants to send us out into the world just has He did with His first disciples, order to take what we receive through our faith, adoration, trust and love of the Holy Eucharist, namely grace and mercy and to share it with the world. But first, we have to be willing to leave everything behind, that is our dependency on ourselves and the things of this world. We need to have a holy detachment from things, using them only as a means to become more attached to Jesus- as did the apostles; we need to use the things of this world, primarily to help us carry out our mission to lead others to Christ so they may be saved.

At this Holy Mass which makes present Jesus our hope in the Holy Eucharist and His once and for all Sacrifice on Calvary, let us ask the Holy Spirit, through the intercession of the Blessed Mother, for a holy detachment from things and a holy attachment to the Creator of things, God our heavenly Father. Let us ask her to help us place our total trust in His divine providence alone beginning at this Holy Mass, by offering ourselves, our whole heart, our whole being all that we have and are to the Father, through the Son in the Unity of the Holy Spirit. Let us make our offering to Jesus through Mary in union with St. Joseph. Totus Tuus! Amen.