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In May and June, I attended six different ordination liturgies in six dioceses, three to the diaconate and three to the priesthood. The priest formators at The St. Paul Seminary make an effort to assure that at least one of us is at each of the ordination liturgies of our seminarians being ordained.
I try to get to as many as I can, both to support our students and to bolster my own missionary zeal. I always come away from an ordination liturgy with a renewed fervor for sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I leave with a greater sense of my mission to preach the Gospel.
In Sunday’s Gospel (Lk 10:1-12, 17-20), Jesus sends out the disciples to every town and village to proclaim the kingdom of God. They are to announce the kerygma, the message of salvation. They are sent on mission to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That is what our newly ordained priests and deacons are sent to do, as they receive their missionary mandate from the bishop. In the ordination liturgy, the bishop prays the prayer of ordination over the new priests, which is addressed to God the Father: “Holy Father … Jesus made his Apostles, consecrated in the truth, sharers in his mission. You provided them also with companions to proclaim and carry out the work of salvation throughout the whole world.”
Our newly ordained priests and deacons are those companions of Jesus who are sent on mission “to proclaim and carry out the work of salvation throughout the whole world.” I love to see the excitement on the faces of those newly ordained men — excitement, after eight or more years of formation, finally to go out on mission to preach the Gospel. It’s an excitement mixed with trepidation, because they know what they are getting into. They know that they will meet resistance, hardship and even persecution. But they are thrilled at the prospect of sharing in the mission of Jesus, to “carry out the work of salvation.”
This missionary mandate, of course, is not just for priests and deacons; it’s for every baptized man and woman. Pope Francis taught, in “Evangelii Gaudium” No. 120, “In virtue of their baptism, all the members of the People of God have become missionary disciples.” So, if you are baptized, you are called by the Lord to share in his mission of proclaiming the Gospel to every town and village. What a privilege that is. How exciting to share in the very mission of the Lord to carry out the work of salvation. But, like those newly ordained men, we can be filled with trepidation. What if someone doesn’t like the message? What if they don’t like me for delivering the message?
That’s why Jesus sent out the disciples two by two. We don’t share in the mission alone; we do it with a fellow disciple. Or, better yet, several fellow disciples. Parishes today are forming teams of missionary disciples to go out and share in the mission of Jesus — to evangelize. As Jesus said, “the harvest is abundant but the laborers are few.” Do you want to be among the few? Ask the master of the harvest to send you out to bring in his harvest. Share in the mission of Jesus.
Father Skluzacek is director of pastoral formation at The St. Paul Seminary in St. Paul and sacramental minister at St. Wenceslaus in New Prague. He can be reached at [email protected].
Sunday, July 3
Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
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