Gospel Reading: Lk 10:1-12
JESUS appointed seventy-two others whom he sent ahead of him in pairs to every town and place he intended to visit. He said to them, “The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest. Go on your way; behold, I am sending you like lambs among wolves. Carry no money bag, no sack, no sandals; and greet no one along the way. Into whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this household.’ If a peaceful person lives there, your peace will rest on him; but if not, it will return to you. Stay in the same house and eat and drink what is offered to you, for the laborer deserves his payment. Do not move about from one house to another. Whatever town you enter and they welcome you, eat what is set before you, cure the sick in it and say to them, ‘The Kingdom of God is at hand for you.’ Whatever town you enter and they do not receive you, go out into the streets and say, ‘The dust of your town that clings to our feet, even that we shake off against you.’ Yet know this: the Kingdom of God is at hand. I tell you, it will be more tolerable for Sodom on that day than for that town.”
Reflection: Peace to this household
If any man can be called to have mirrored Jesus’ command to bring peace to people, it is St. Francis, the poverello or “poor man” of Assisi. Francis lived the high-spirited life typical of a wealthy young man, even fighting as a soldier for Assisi. A serious illness led him to a spiritual crisis. On a pilgrimage to Rome, he joined the poor in begging at St. Peter’s Basilica, an experience that moved him to live in poverty. Francis returned home and began preaching on the streets. He was disowned by his father but soon gathered followers.
Francis chose never to be ordained a priest, and the community he led lived as “lesser brothers” (fratres minores in Latin). The brothers lived a simple life and spent much of their time wandering through the mountainous districts of Umbria, always cheerful and full of songs, yet making a deep impression upon their hearers by their earnest exhortations.
Francis preached to man and beast the universal ability and duty of all creatures to praise God and the responsibility of people to protect and enjoy nature both as stewards of God’s creation and as creatures themselves. He told his brothers that the best preaching is through the example of their lives: “Go and preach, and if necessary, speak!”
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