Holy Mother of God, true and faithful mother, Mother of the Church and so mother of all the disciple of Christ, Pray for us; help us leave behind whatever our hearts are set on beside Jesus and cling to Him alone.

Luke 10; 1-12,17-20 Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time. July 3rd, 2016

Today we continue our readings from St. Luke’s Gospel on discipleship. Last week, Jesus told us that the cost of being a disciple is high; we must give up everything to follow Him. Recall that Jesus said, “Let the dead bury the dead,” and “no one who sets a hand to the plow and looks to what was left behind is fit for the Kingdom of God.” The disciples of Jesus left everything to follow Him; they left their families, their jobs, their possessions and even their comfort zone to follow him, but in doing so they found that peace that the world cannot give.

Today, we hear Jesus sent out his disciples on a mission. Jesus gives them great authority- to preach, to teach, to heal and even to expel demons in Jesus own name. They are to go with nothing extra. We heard that they took no moneybag, no sack, and no extra sandals into a hostile world; they were like lambs amongst wolves. The disciples are to depend on Jesus literally for everything. This may seem to be rather extreme for us; but as we heard in the Gospel, the results were amazing, and the disciples rejoice because they had seen the divine power of God working through them in their human weakness and emptiness.

You might be thinking, if this is what it means to be a disciple of Jesus, I don’t think I want anything to do it. After all, we certainly cannot give up everything-our homes, our jobs, and all of our possessions to follow Jesus. And being sent without any supplies? Think of how we pack for a trip- of course we pack and prepare for every possible contingency. When we travel, we have to make sure we have extra money or least have all of our credit cards ready. So, how in the world can we possibly live this message of discipleship in our day?

To get over our fear, we first start by realizing that Jesus is indeed calling each one of us to be His disciples in order to send us forth to preach the Good News, that is, the Gospel with our lives. With His help received through daily prayer, we slowly detach ourselves from those things that interiorly, that is within our hearts, that we have place before Him, those things that are keeping us from growing in deeper intimacy Him. Our heartfelt desire to begin to live totally attached to Jesus, then grows and grows.

It is not that we all must physically get rid of all that we possess, but that we must free our hearts from of all that we have placed before Jesus. We no longer live just to obtain things, but now we live to obtain the One thing we can't live without, the Creator of all things, Jesus and His Love. With this freedom, we can more and more abandoned ourselves trustingly into His loving arms and into His Holy Will.

Here we must mention a couple of things that our hearts cling to even more than physical things, and which prevents us from attaching ourselves more fully to Jesus, and these things are sin and error. We must, in our hearts and in our lives detach ourselves from sin and accept the truth no matter how difficult. Sin and error make us fearful to give ourselves totally to Jesus. Sin and error make us count the cost, only thinking of what we must give up instead of what we gain—Jesus Christ and all things beside. Sin and error make us think we lose something of ourselves when answer Jesus call and forsake all to follow Him.

In order to let go of our sin and error, we reach out for Jesus' divine help, which comes to us through Holy Mother Church. She is Jerusalem mention in our first reading today. It is in her arms that we are comforted with the fullness of truth. It is from her that we can receive the spiritual “milk” we need to grow in love and in strength to be faithful and effective disciples of the Lord. We receive this “milk” first of all by our full, active, conscious and fruitful participation in the Sacred Liturgy; that is the Holy Mass and the other Sacraments.

In her healing Sacraments, of confession, the Holy Eucharist and the Holy Anointing we are freed from sin, healed, saved and raised up. With her teachings we are given the truth that frees us and sets us free. But again, we for our part must repent and convert our lives. This means we do the hard work of changing those actions in our lives that are not in accord with God’s divine Will. When we more and more conform ourselves to the teachings of His Holy Catholic Church, living them out in our daily lives with the help of the grace of the Sacraments, then we are given peace and can share that peace with others.

Let us turn to Our Lady for help. Holy Mother of God, true and faithful mother, Mother of the Church and so mother of all the disciple of Christ, Pray for us; help us leave behind whatever our hearts are set on beside Jesus and cling to Him alone. Help us at this Holy Mass to boast only in the cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ by abandoning ourselves and our lives into the Arms our Heavenly Father, exulting with Holy Mother Church by sacrificing all we have and are on this altar of sacrifice so that we may receive more fully Jesus, your Son in the Holy Eucharist and so be transformed bearing the marks of Jesus on our own bodies for the world to see. Then we will be Jesus' faithful disciples, instruments of His Love and Mercy bringing His peace into the world, into our families, all for His Glory and for the salvation souls. God Bless you all, and have a Happy and safe Fourth of July!