Instructions for the Journey

Homily for Thursday of the 4th Week in Ordinary Time

On Tuesday the world was all excited about the fact that Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon, had decided to retire from his position as the head of that company to pursue the development of new technologies and products. In the course of his seventeen years as the Chief Executive Officer of Amazon, he had become the richest man in the world, so rich that he has also started his own space company similar to that of Elon Musk

Although we don’t refer to him in these terms, you might say that Jesus is the Chief Executive Officer of the Catholic faith. As we listen to his instructions to the disciples in today’s Gospel, we cannot help but realize that their role doesn’t come anywhere close to that of Jeff Bezos or any other CEO of any other company. They are to rely fully on the hospitality of those to whom they are sent, they are expected to trust in the goodness of the people they meet, and they are expected to place their trust in God’s providence.

Of course, the Church is not a human institution led by a CEO, but a divine institution sustained, prospered, and upheld through the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Humans may administer the temporal aspects of the divine, but everything we are and do is through the grace and providence of God. That’s the message of the Gospel today.

The instructions that Jesus gave to his disciples are the same instructions we are given for the spiritual journey we take through our faith. Like the disciples, we are to rely upon God and upon others as we go about doing the work of God’s kingdom. In whatever circumstance we find ourselves, if we listen to God and depend on him, we can accomplish what he asks of us.

Fr. Lawrence Jagdfeld, O.F.M., Administrator