Gospel – Mark 6: 7-13
Jesus summoned the Twelve and began to send them out in pairs, giving them authority over unclean spirits. And he instructed them to take nothing for the journey except a staff — no bread, no haversack, no coppers for their purses.
They were to wear sandals but, he added, ‘Don’t take a spare tunic.’ And he said to them, ‘If you enter a house anywhere, stay there until you leave the district. And if any place does not welcome you and people refuse to listen to you, as you walk away shake off the dust under your feet as evidence to them.’
So they set off to proclaim repentance; and they cast out many devils, and anointed many sick people with oil and cured them.
The Gospel of the Lord
The Mass intention is for Shelley Doyle RIP
Reflection:
Saint Mark’s Gospel continues what we have already seen in the Gospel yesterday. The passage through Nazareth was painful for Jesus. He was rejected by his own people. The community which before had been his community, now, it is no longer such. Something has changed.
Beginning at that moment, as today’s Gospel says, Jesus began to go round the villages of Galilee to announce the Good News and to send the Twelve on mission. In the years 70’s, the time when Mark wrote his Gospel, the Christian communities lived in a difficult situation, without any horizon. Humanly speaking, here was no future for them.
But there is hope, Jesus extends the mission and intensifies the announcement of the Good News calling other people to involve them in the mission. “He summoned the Twelve, and began to send them out in pairs, giving them authority over unclean spirits.” The objective of the mission is simple and profound. The disciples participate in the mission of Jesus. They cannot go alone, they have to go in pairs, two by two, because two persons represent the community better than one alone and they can mutually help one another. They receive authority over unclean spirits, that is, they have to be a help for others in suffering and, through purification, and they have to open the door for direct access to God.
- Do you participate in the mission as a disciple of Jesus?
- Which point of the mission of the apostles is more important for us today? Why?
