Peace be with you. Friends, it's the 15th
Sunday of Ordinary Time, and our gospel is from
the 6th chapter of Mark. Mark the first Gospel, this rather spare,
understated Gospel. But gosh, every part of it,
precisely for that reason, is worth paying attention to. The one for today is Jesus sending
the 12 out on mission. And here's why I
particularly love this. We are at, if you want, the very earliest moments
of the Church. In a way it's the pre-Church because we're prior to the death and resurrection
of the Lord and the sending of the Spirit. You might say, after that,
after Pentecost, you have the Church in
the full sense on display. So we're like
in a pre-Church, the earliest moments, but for that very reason,
it's really important for us to pay attention to
what the Lord tells them. I might've told
this story before, but gosh, it haunts my mind. Cardinal George's last speech to the priests of Chicago
when he said, "Remember, brothers, in the
early Church, there was no Vatican,
there were no dioceses, no chancery offices,
no parishes, no Catholic schools,
no Catholic hospitals." In other words, none
of the institutional apparatus of the Church was around. "However," he said, "there were evangelists." And his point,
which is, gosh, it's so well taken,
so important. Can we forget sometimes
what we are primarily about as we're preoccupied with the
institutional structure of the Church? Now, another reason I personally
find this very compelling is Jesus summons the 12, so his 12 Apostles,
and sends them out. Well, as a bishop,
I'm a successor to the Apostles,
however unworthy I am. Of course, they weren't
all that worthy. Whatever we say,
then we think, "Well, yeah, look at the
Apostles in the scriptures." But the 12, the 12, well,
these are the first bishops. What does Jesus
tell them to do? He doesn't talk about
chancery offices. When I think of my work, maybe what immediately
comes to my mind is the chancery and administrative
responsibilities and raising money and all those
good and important things. But what does Jesus
tell the first bishops, the first 12? Well, let's notice
a couple things. He began to send
them out two by two. We are an apostolic religion,
period. Yes, they had their kind
of intimate time with the Lord where they listened to
him and they were with him and they attended to him, but then he sends them. In fact, apostello in
Greek means to send. So an apostle is
someone sent out. It's a very basic
dynamic now of the Church at its best. It doesn't hunker down. It doesn't settle
for the status quo. The Church goes out,
sent by the Lord. There's a sort of healthy
restlessness about the Church at its best, never satisfied with
what we have, always looking for more, going to get more
people for Christ. I like that holy restlessness that should mark the Church. Notice too, he sends them
out two by two. Christian religion is never
this sort of lone ranger business. It's a corporate identity. So even as they
go out on mission, they go out two by two, they're connected
to each other and they're connected
through each other to Christ. It's never just a, "I'm the one guy,
I'm the apostle." It's two by two corporately
as a mystical body the Church is sent. But now listen,
he sends them and what's the first
thing we hear about their mission, what
the Lord wants them to do? Listen. "He gave them authority
over unclean spirits." Okay, you think of the
work of the Church, you think of the
work of a bishop. I bet for most of us, what does not leap to mind
is expelling demons, but there it is. The first thing he
gives them is authority, mind you. So he's not sending
them out with nothing, equipped with nothing. "Hey, guys,
you're on your own. Do the best you can." No, no. He gives them a share
in his own exousia. That's the lovely
Greek word there, which means from
the being of. See, Jesus speaks with
authority because he speaks out
of his own divinity. Well, we Christian ministers,
do we believe this? We bishops and priests. We're sent out,
clothed in that authority. To do what? Spiritual warfare,
spiritual battle. Now, I know, you're thinking
right away of The Exorcist, and yes, there are those very dramatic instances of demonic
possession, but let's face the devil,
the dark powers, they manifest themselves in all kinds of more
subtle ways. Wherever you find accusation, wherever you find division,
wherever you find cruelty, wherever you find hatred, wherever you find temptation, that's the dark power,
that's the devil. The Church's first job, its ministers are clothed
with authority to deal with this
demonic power. I just wonder,
again, everyone, do we think of that
naturally and immediately as the work of the Church? We should. Do we see ourselves engaging
in spiritual warfare? Look at every single
story of the hero. There's always a
battle with the dragon. That's an old name,
by the way, for the devil, draco in Latin,
the dragon. Yep, we've been
given authority. We should use it. But then listen, "He instructed them to take
nothing for the journey, but a walking stick. No food, no sack,
no money in their belts." Now I think about this, I still travel a lot in my work to give talks
and go to meetings and do various things. So I go to airports
all the time. I couldn't imagine arriving
at an airport without a suitcase
and without a wallet. No money, no credit
cards and no suitcase. I'm just going to go. I mean, would I have
that kind of confidence? But that's how he sends
the first bishops out. You know who imitates this,
see a lot of the saints up and down the ages,
Francis of Assisi tried to live this way and his first
followers lived this way. Thousands came
to join Francis, and they didn't have
dormitories or monasteries. He said, "Oh, there's the woods.
Go live in the woods trusting in God's
providence." Think of the stories
of St. Brendan and those Irish monks
that would just get in a boat and
they'd drift out to sea. And wherever they
happened to land, that's where they'd
build their monastery. Trusting, trusting
in God's providence. Well, how important it is,
everybody, for the life of the Church. Do we have that confidence or do we rely way too much
on our institutions to give us that kind of
support and that confidence? Do we trust? Do we trust in the
Lord as we do our work? Just recently, in fact, this very room where
I'm recording these words, this young man who's
a Jesuit novice came and he was on
his pilgrimage. The Jesuit Order,
I think, is beautiful. They compel their
novices to do this. Give them a little bit
of money and maybe one bus ticket
and they say, "I want you to get from
point A to point B." And the idea is you don't
have money in your belt. You don't have a credit card. You're relying upon
the providence of God to lead you to people
that will help you. Well, that does
something to your soul, when that gets deep
down inside of you, that kind of trust,
that kind of risk. Well, that's how he
sends the first bishops out on their journey. I love this. They were, however,
to wear sandals, so no money but sandals. Why? Because you're
going to be walking, because I'm sending you out. I don't want you
sitting around. I want you moving
from place to place. That's very important. Sandals, yes,
and also a walking stick. Now, think about this. First of all, practically, if you're walking, especially in the rough
roads of the ancient world, this was a very valuable
thing to have if you're going to be
a walker. But there's
something else here. Think of Moses
with his staff. Think of Aaron
with his staff. Think even in this
mythic context, someone like Gandalf
with the staff. The staff in the ancient world was
a symbol of power and authority. Once again, the Lord is not sending
them out unprepared. They don't have a bit of
the power and authority and security of the world. That's true.
That's stripped away. But by God, they have
the authority of the Gospel. They have the
authority of Christ. I do wonder,
friends, at times, if we leaders of the Church, forget this, forget the... and I don't mean authority
in some oppressive, I'm going to tell
you what to do sense. I mean the
spiritual authority. I love Spielberg's
movie about Lincoln, and of course Lincoln is
famously humble figure, but there's a scene where
he's being challenged at the end of the movie
and because it's Lincoln, this humble man,
it has so much more power. He rises from the
table and he says, "I am the President of the
United States of America, clothed in immense power," and he was making a
particular point there. But that scene
stays in my mind. I wonder, do we leaders
of the Church claim that same
sort of power and again, not bossing
other people around power. I mean spiritual power. That's what that
staff symbolizes. Do we claim it
and do we use it against the dark powers? That's how the
Lord sent them out. Now listen, "Wherever you enter a house,
stay there until you leave. Whatever place does not
welcome you or listen to you, leave there and shake
the dust off your feet and testimony against them." Did the Lord know
from the beginning that some people
would reject the gospel? Yes. Does he want all to be saved? Yes. And he sends,
"Go out to all, go to the end of the world,
declare to everybody." But does he know,
just as he was opposed, they would be opposed? We should not be surprised, we proclaimers
of the gospel, that we will meet
with opposition. Now, if you doubt me on this, go anytime of the day
or night on the internet and start talking
about religion. You will see
in very short order the opposition to the gospel. But I love how,
I don't know, kind of insouciantly,
he talks about this. "So when people reject you, shake the dust off your
feet and on you go." In other words,
don't obsess over that. "Why, why are
they rejecting?" Jesus was rejected. You'll be rejected. It is par for the course. When the Church's
preoccupation becomes everybody's got to like me,
then we've lost our way. Period. End of argument. If our goal is, well, and let's make sure
everybody gets along and no one finds us offensive, we've lost the theme. We are not the Church. Opposition will come,
of course. Now this is how it closes. So they went off with
these instructions and what did they do? Preached repentance. The first word out of
Jesus' mouth in Mark's Gospel is metanoiate,
which means repent. Change your mind,
change your life. Turn around. It certainly is not,
"Hey, you're all doing great. I'm okay. You're okay.
Everyone's good." That is not the Gospel. The first word out of
Jesus' mouth is repent. The first thing he tells them
to do is to preach repentance. Are we calling people, I mean we leaders
of the Church, we bishops, are we calling people
to repentance? That's our first task. There's a great story
about Dorothy Day. So toward the
end of her life, she died 1980,
and this is 1976, the year of the Bicentennial. And TIME Magazine had a feature
where they asked famous people, "Do you have a message for
America on its Bicentennial?" So people said all
these nice encouraging, patriotic things. And they came to
Dorothy Day and said, "Do you have a message for
America on her Bicentennial?" And she said,
"Yes. Repent." Well, maybe it didn't suit the
readership of TIME Magazine, but by God it suited exactly what
Jesus told his disciples to do. So then finally, "So the 12 drove
out many demons. They anointed with oil many
who were sick and cured them." Okay, we're a
healing ministry. The Church is about healing, at the spiritual level,
at the physical level. Christ is Salvatore,
we say in Latin. Our word savior
comes from that. Salvatore means healer. Is the Church bringing
healing power? Remember, we're clothed
with immense power. We're clothed with authority
from the Holy Spirit to drive out the dark powers and to bring healing
at all levels, spiritually, psychologically,
physically. Well, there it is, everybody. Mark 6: 7-13 if you want
to check it. There's the program. What's the Church? Well, at the beginning
there weren't any of those things
Cardinal George mentioned. This is what Jesus saw
from the beginning, and this still ought to
inform everything we do today. And God bless you.
