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15th Sunday in Ordinary Time (B)

July 14, 2024

Fr. John Colacino C.PP.S.

Introit

Kyrie

Gloria

Collect

O God, who show the light of your truth
to those who go astray,
so that they may return to the right path,
give all who for the faith they profess
are accounted Christians
the grace to reject whatever is contrary to the name of Christ
and to strive after all that does it honor.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever. Amen.

First Reading Am 7:12-15

Amaziah, the priest of Bethel, said to Amos, “O seer, go, flee away to the land of Judah, earn your bread there, and prophesy there; 13 but never again prophesy at Bethel, for it is the king’s sanctuary, and it is a temple of the kingdom.” 14 Then Amos answered Amaziah, “I am no prophet, nor a prophet’s son; but I am a herdsman, and a dresser of sycamore trees, 15 and the Lord took me from following the flock, and the Lord said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel.’”

Responsorial Psalm Ps 85:9-10, 11-12, 13-14

R. (8) Lord, let us see your kindness, and grant us your salvation.

I will hear what God proclaims;
the LORD —for he proclaims peace.
Near indeed is his salvation to those who fear him,
glory dwelling in our land.

Kindness and truth shall meet;
justice and peace shall kiss.
Truth shall spring out of the earth,
and justice shall look down from heaven.

The LORD himself will give his benefits;
our land shall yield its increase.
Justice shall walk before him,
and prepare the way of his steps.

Second Reading Eph 1:3-10

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. 4 Before the foundation of the world God chose us in Christ to be holy and blameless before him in love. 5 God destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of God’s will, 6 this is for the praise of his glorious grace that God freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. 7 In Christ we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace 8 that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and insight 9 God has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, 10 as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth.*

Alleluia Cf. Eph 1:17-18

Gospel Mk 6:7-13

Jesus called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. 8 He ordered them to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts; 9 but to wear sandals and not to put on two tunics. 10 Jesus said to them, “Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place. 11 If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.” 12 So the twelve went out and proclaimed that all should repent. 13 They cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.

Catena Nova

The Church, spread throughout the whole world, received this preaching and this faith and now preserves it carefully, dwelling as it were in one house. Having one soul and one heart, the Church holds this faith, preaches and teaches it consistently as though by a single voice. For though there are different languages, there is but one tradition (St. Irenaeus).

Besides teaching himself the Lord also sent out the Twelve in pairs. The reason for sending them in pairs was so that they would go more readily, for they might not have been so willing to set out all alone, and, on the other hand, if he had sent more than two together, there would not have been enough apostles to cover all the villages.... He commanded them to take nothing with them, neither bag, nor money, not bread, so as to teach them to despise riches, and to make people ashamed when they saw them preaching poverty by their own lack of possessions....The Lord instructed them to stay in the same house so as not to give the appearance of restlessness, as though they moved from one family to another in order to satisfy their stomachs. On the other hand, he told them to shake the dust off their feet when people refused to receive them, to show that they had made a long journey for their sakes and they owed them nothing; they had received nothing from them, not even their dust, which they shook off as a testimony against them—a testimony of reproach.... “So they set out to preach repentance. They cast out many demons, and anointed many sick people with oil and cured them” (Theophylact).

It must be pointed out to the preacher, if he is to cause his people profit and not to embarrass himself with vain joy and presumption, that preaching is a spiritual exercise rather than a vocal one. For, although it is practiced by means of outward words, its power and efficacy reside not in these but in the inward spirit. Wherefore, however lofty be the doctrine that is preached, and however choice the rhetoric and sublime the style wherein it is clothed, it brings as a rule no more benefit than is present in the spirit of the preacher (St. John of the Cross).

Everyone who breathes, high and low, educated and ignorant, young and old, man and woman, has a mission, has a work. We are not sent into this world for nothing; we are not born at random; we are not here, that we may go to bed at night, and get up in the morning, toil for our bread, eat and drink, laugh and joke, sin when we have a mind, and reform when we are tired of sinning, rear a family and die. God sees every one of us; He creates every soul, . . . for a purpose. He needs, He deigns to need, every one of us. He has an end for each of us; we are all equal in His sight, and we are placed in our different ranks and stations, not to get what we can out of them for ourselves, but to labor in them for Him. As Christ has His work, we too have ours; as He rejoiced to do His work, we must rejoice in ours also (St. John Henry Newman).

God is so good that he orders his representatives, each time they enter a home, to utter these words: Peace to this home. And he commits himself to make such words effective, bringing forth the peace they express, making it actually descend from heaven on this home at the very moment the words are uttered, provided that the souls inhabiting it do not of themselves reject peace through ill will. Let us hope, since we receive such gifts every day; let us hope especially since the heart of Jesus loves us to the extent of giving us so much! (St. Charles De Foucauld).

As the herald of the Gospel the Church begins its task by evangelizing itself. The Church is a fellowship made up of believers. This means it is a fellowship of living and shared hope. It is also a fellowship of familial love. It needs to hear the heart of its faith continually proclaimed. It needs to recall the grounds of its hope. This all comes through the new commandment of love. The Church is the People of God, living in the world and frequently tempted by false gods. So we, as the Church, need to be reminded of God’s mighty deeds and their call to conversion. We need to hear the Lord’s call anew. We need to be gathered together again into unity. The Church always needs to listen to the Gospel message. The only way it can retain vigor and zeal and discover in itself the power to proclaim Christ’s message is through this listening. The only way for the Church to evangelize others is by evangelizing itself and being continually converted and renewed.... It is only insofar as it is evangelized that the Church can be sent out to preach. It sends out evangelists to continue the work which brought its members of God. It puts the word of salvation into our mouths.... The Church owes its origin to the preaching of the Good New by Jesus, and then by the Twelve.... The mission of evangelizing is that of the entire Church and each individual member. The labor and prayer and love of each is important for the fulfillment of the task given the whole (Pope St. Paul VI).

In the Gospel Jesus instructs the Apostles to take nothing for the journey but a walking stick - no food, no sack, no money in their belts. In essence, poverty. The apostle must be a pastor who does not seek sheep's milk, who does not seek sheep's wool. As expressed by Saint Augustine the shepherd who seeks milk seeks money, and the shepherd who seeks wool likes to dress with vanity. I invite Christians to follow a path of poverty, humility, meekness. Jesus told the Apostles “Whatever place does not welcome you or listen to you, leave there and shake the dust off your feet”, but do so with meekness and humility. If an apostle, an envoy, one of us goes, with his nose in the air, believing himself superior to the others or because of self-interest looking for some human interest he will never heal anyone, he will never succeed in opening anyone's heart, because his word will have no authority (Pope Francis).

Homily

Imagine, if you will, a bishop standing in front of the White House or the Supreme Court, and yelling at whoever happens to be President or Chief Justice that their policies and decisions were an affront to the law of God and that, as a result, they would be impeached and die in a foreign country, and that the nation itself would be severely chastised for its infidelity to the Founders’ vision for America, especially its oppression of the needy at the gate, and that its reliance on wealth and prosperity was a false god, and would soon be lost in an economic and social collapse from which it would never recover.

Then imagine the President appearing on the balcony of the Executive Mansion or the Chief Justice on the steps of the court and yelling down to the bishop that his message was alarmist hogwash, an insult to the people of the United States, and that he should leave the country for his lack of patriotism. All at the urging of self-serving religious leaders who imagined themselves to be God’s spokesmen.

Well, if you could possibly imagine such a thing, then you’ve come pretty close to the experience of the prophet Amos in his confrontation with Jeroboam, King of Israel, whom the priest Amaziah and his temple cohorts urged to see the prophet off since the country could not endure all his words (Amos 7:10). And the king, heeding the priest’s counsel, ordering Amos to leave the country, saying, Off with you, visionary, flee to the land of Judah! … never again prophesy in Bethel (I).

Well, it turns out, it doesn’t take much to imagine such things. Where you might ask?

Let's start with Bishop Mark Seitz of El Paso, speaking as chairman of the Committee on Migration for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, who said last month:

There is a crisis of conscience at the U.S.-Mexico border. When vulnerable families seeking safety and the means for a dignified life are labeled ‘invaders’ or ‘illegals’, terms that mask their humanity, we have strayed from the path of righteousness, succumbed to our fear of the ‘other’, and forsaken the values upon which our nation was founded.

This sentiment in no way violates a country’s right and responsibility to maintain its borders and regulate immigration in furtherance of the common good. Nevertheless, as defenders of human life and dignity, which we hold sacred and inviolable from the moment of conception, we cannot accept unjust conditions on the right to migrate for those fleeing life-threatening situations. We especially worry for those compelled by these policies to traverse more treacherous terrain, further endangering their lives and the lives of Border Patrol agents.

For those concerned about violent gangs, drug smugglers, and human traffickers, we join you in opposing those evildoers. At the same time, we ask: What fate awaits the families who flee for their lives from the same predatory actors, only to be returned to their grasp once they reach our borders? Imposing arbitrary limits on asylum access and curtailing due process will only empower and embolden those who seek to exploit the most vulnerable. These measures will not sustainably reduce the increased levels of forced migration seen worldwide.

Mindful of challenges faced by American communities and consistent with our longstanding and repeated calls for bipartisan reform of our broken immigration system, we strongly urge the President to reverse course and recommit his administration to policies that respect the human life and dignity of migrants, both within and beyond our borders.

(June 4, 2024; https://www.usccb.org/news/2024/approach-us-mexico-border-reflects-crisis-conscience-says-bishop-seitz)

Then there's Ukrainian Catholic Archbishop Borys Gudziak of the Archeparchy of Philadelphia, chair of the bishops' Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, who noted in response to the recent Supreme Court decision regarding the unhoused claiming it is constitutional to arrest or fine such individuals "for resting or shielding themselves from the elements in a public place even when no safe shelter is available" :

Policies that criminalize homelessness are a direct contradiction of our call to shelter those experiencing homelessness and care for those in need….Criminalizing [the] homeless is not the response to caring for those in need. This decision fails to affirm the inherent dignity of a person, which is properly recognized by the constitution. Having to sleep in public with a blanket is the definition of being homeless. Ticketing and arresting people for it is a counterproductive approach to the problem of homelessness. Instead of punishing the most vulnerable among us, government should help provide shelter and economic and social programs that uphold and enhance the dignity of homeless persons. Such action would offer real opportunities for a better life and to remedy the deeper causes of homelessness”

(June 28, 2024; https://www.usccb.org/news/2024/recognize-inherent-dignity-every-person-especially-those-experiencing-homelessness-says)

Now it would be a mistake to think one needs a special calling to be a prophet. Amos himself did not. In his own words, “I was no prophet, nor have I belonged to a company of prophets; I was a shepherd and a dresser of sycamores (I). He was literally minding his own business when the word of the LORD came to him and before he knew it he was calling out priests and king.

And it was no doubt the same for the Twelve when they were sent out on their first preaching mission by Jesus. They were minding their own business too – Andrew, Peter, James and John tending their fishing nets; Matthew his tax collecting and the others no doubt their daily occupations when they heard Jesus’ call to follow him. And before they knew it they were preaching repentance to people who, like Jeroboam and Amaziah, did not welcome [them] or listen to [them], such that they left those people and places shaking the dust off [their] feet in testimony against them (cf. G).

And we can pretty much expect the same should we be minding our own business and hear the words, Go, prophesy to my people (I). And, by the way, you are just as qualified as Amos and the apostles were. For on the day of your baptism, you were anointed with chrism, to the following words: "[God] now anoints you with the chrism of salvation. As Christ was anointed Priest, Prophet, and King, so may you live always as a member of his body, sharing everlasting life." Which is to say, with St. Paul, in all wisdom and insight, God has made known to us the mystery of his will in accord with his favor that he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of times, to sum up all things in Christ, in heaven and on earth (cf. II). Who lives and reigns, forever and ever. Amen.

Intercessions (Joe Milner; The Sunday Website)

For wisdom: that God will guide us as we oppose injustices and encounter opposition or rejection for living the Gospel.

For a deepening of gratitude: that we may recognize and appreciate all the gifts that God has given us and honor God by utilizing them fully for God’s glory.

For a spirit of hospitality: that God's generosity to us may be extended as we welcome the stranger and reach out to those who are in need.

For all who are suffering: that God will assist those recovering from storms, protect those who live amidst violence, guide those who are seeking employment, and comfort all who are grieving.

For a deeper appreciation of the earth: that we may protect the topsoil and preserve it for the common good of feeding all the human family.

For all political leaders: that God will help them to understand the greatest needs of those whom they serve and work to promote the common good.

God of justice, God of salvation, from every land you call a people to yourself. Yours is the work we do, yours the message we carry. Keep your Church single-minded and faithful to you. Let failure not discourage us nor success beguile our hearts, as you send us to proclaim the gospel. We make our prayer through Christ our Lord. Amen. (ICEL; 1998)

Offertory Antiphon

Offertory Hymn (John L. Bell)

O Christ, the Master Carpenter, who at the last, through wood and nails, purchased our whole salvation, wield well your tools in the workshop of your world, so that we who come rough-hewn to your bench may be fashioned to a truer beauty of your hand and touch. We ask it for your own Name’s sake.

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