15th Sunday in 2015

Our Gospel is taken from Mark 6: 7-13 which states in its opening that Jesus called His twelve disciples and began to send them out two by two with His authority. Notice my dear friends the first two acts of Jesus i.e., to call and to send. Obviously, when Jesus called His disciples, their response was to join Him while when He sent them, their response was to leave Him. Though all these seem to be obvious, look at how the Gospel refers to the disciples. When they approached Jesus as He called them, they were one single unit known as the Twelve. And the purpose of Jesus in calling them was to send them out two by two. Here, the Twelve was divided into pairs, two by two. It was only at this point that Jesus gave them His instructions.

My dear friends, from this Gospel narrative which exposes to us the position of the disciples in relation to Jesus, we are being reminded of two things: our prayer life and our pastoral life.

In our prayer life, we are called to be with Jesus. So as we pray to Him, it is better to bring with us our Christian Community like how the Twelve approached Jesus when He called them. It is better to pray as a Community as this is also in consonance with the promise of Jesus in Matthew 18: 20 –For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. We do not have any problem with this  as we always pray and celebrate our liturgy and sacraments as a community.

In our pastoral life, we are called to go for a mission just as the disciples were sent out by Jesus. This means we do not only pray as a Catholic but we also do something to express our faith. What do you think a good Catholic shall do while seeing someone is drowning in a swimming pool? Shall he say, “I will pray for you while you are drowning” or shall he attempt to save the victim the best way he can? Of course, he has to do something to save the victim aside from his prayers.

Now, we learn from the Gospel that aside from praying we have the mission to be living witnesses of our faith, to preach the Word of God, to preach repentance, and everything which is implied in doing them. But in going to a mission, we need to have a companion on our way. It is better if we have our Community with us while in a mission. Yet, if this is not possible, then we have to request for at least one as a partner. Why? It is because the purpose why we preach is to build a Community in His name. And in building a Christian Community, one man alone cannot do it even if he is a good preacher. On one hand, we know how people dislike those who do not live what they preach. On the other hand, if people see how two missionaries live harmoniously together in Christ, they are more drawn to join the latter. In addition, one man alone cannot do all things to fulfill his mission as he has his own share of weakness and limitations. Working in pair is expressed in the Book of Sirach 42: 24-25 which states, “All things are in pairs, each the opposite of the other, but nothing the Lord made is incomplete. Everything completes the goodness of something else.”

To end, I will share to you my experience as a first time parish priest. When I was assigned at San Lorenzo Ruiz Parish as a parish priest in year 2012, I was not alone in going there. I asked Adonis who was a candidate for the ministry of deacon at that time to help me in the parish. Our first few months were difficult because we cooked our own food, did all the cleaning, celebrated mass just for the two of us during weekdays and talked to each other from morning to evening. This was so because our parish is composed of three barangays and is far from its town. Our parishioners are mostly nominal Catholics who go to mass on Sunday. With this setting, we could not talk to our parishioners after the mass because they would hurriedly go home to rest or go to visit the town. This is understandable because it is only on Sunday that they could rest after working in the field for a week. After sometime, Adonis and I decided to make a pastoral plan and we divided our pastoral work between us. I had to deal with the old ones while he had to deal with the young ones. Within our first four months, we organized the first batch of the Ministry of the Altar and the Parish Youth Council. We revived the inactive organization and strengthened the others. Everything went well until Adonis was ordained and left the parish while I stayed alone. It was there and then that I could feel the burden of being alone in the parish. I could not forget that sometime in May, I suffered from hypertension but I needed to say the mass as it was the feast of San Isidro Labrador. I could not do anything except to celebrate the mass without them knowing that I could not see anything anymore. I decided to baptize the children within the mass too as I knew that I could not stand any longer after the mass. That was the feast that I never enjoyed because I had to go back to the convent to sleep in pain. I needed to take a rest because the next day I had to say mass again which nobody could do in the parish. My dear friends, this is my experience which leads me to appreciate why Jesus had to send out His disciples two by two. And I ask you today to pray for your priests especially for those who are assigned alone in their parish or in a mission area. Moreover, may you be our prayer-partners starting today. Amen.