FOURTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (JULY 6, 2025)
“Ask the Master of the harvest to send out laborers for His harvest.”
Two weeks ago, my husband Jeff and I attended a Franciscan visitation in Center City Philadelphia. The minister of this fraternity excitedly told us that their host parish was moving out purposely to support Archbishop Nelson Pérez’s new evangelization. Handing me a copy of their parish bulletin, she pointed out the upcoming pastor’s meeting to energize the faithful to reach out to those who were on the peripheries. Evangelization is a most Franciscan endeavor of living the Good News!
In his pastoral letter to the Archdiocese of Philadelphia ((https://trustandhope.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Pastoral-Letter-FINAL_ENGLISH.pdf), the archbishop described how the Church needed to be:
“We must be a community of Missionary Disciples focused on renewal, rebuilding trust, and inviting people to a relationship with Jesus Christ!”
When he assumed his episcopacy five years ago, Archbishop Pérez faced the daunting challenges of moving from crisis to hope. Many parishioners were fearful of the closures of their beloved parishes. He received great inspiration from the first apostolic exhortation of Pope Francis: Evangelii Gaudium (EG)-The Joy of the Gospel (2013):
“I invite all Christians, everywhere, at this very moment, to a renewed personal encounter with Jesus Christ, or at least an openness to letting Him encounter them…No one should think that this invitation is not meant for him or her, since ‘no one is excluded from the joy brought by the Lord’…Whenever we take a step towards Jesus, we come to realize that He is already there, waiting for us with open arms.” (EG 3) The archbishop reached out to everyone in the archdiocese with this appeal: “We need everyone in our lives and across our local Church to know this. Where do we start?”
In this weekend’s Gospel, Jesus prepares to send out seventy-two disciples in pairs, commenting to them that the harvest is great, but the laborers are few. He then tells them to “ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for His harvest.” The proclamation of the Kingdom of God was still so new at this time of Jesus’ ministry, yet He entrusted this task to His disciples to go before Him and prepare the way. Now, we are in the Jubilee Year of Hope 2025, and Christ still calls us to this kind of discipleship—through the Magisterium, as Archbishop Pérez has done.
The US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has noted the sobering reality that 83% of baptized Catholics don’t come to church. This statistic should concern us, too, and foster a desire in us to be missionary disciples. What does it mean in our world to live without Christ in our lives? Do we understand why Catholics have given up the practice of their faith? In a fast-paced society that uses impersonal technology to stay connected, we frequently encounter young people (and elderly) who are lonely, anxious, and without hope. Despite this reality, our hope endures through the Risen Christ, who reaches out to encounter each of us and invites us to share our experiences with others:
“The Church which ‘goes forth’ is a community of missionary disciples who take the first step, who are involved and supportive, who bear fruit and rejoice. An evangelizing community knows that the Lord has taken the initiative, he has loved us first (cf. 1 Jn 4:19), and therefore we can move forward, boldly take the initiative, go out to others, seek those who have fallen away, stand at the crossroads and welcome the outcast.” (EG 24)
When Archbishop Pérez was the Chairperson of the USCCB Committee on Cultural Diversity in the Church, he approved a pastoral document for evangelization called Creating a Culture of Encounter: A Guide for Joyful Missionary Disciples (May 2019) whose vision was to reach out to those on the margins in a spirit of encounter based on these four objectives, relevant to all disciples of Christ:
- Promote a vision of the Church in mission that invites, engages, and forms youth, young adults, families, and lay ecclesial movements to live out their baptismal vocation.
- Provide a process of faith sharing and missionary activity that prepares Catholics to share and celebrate the Good News of Jesus Christ and to become leaven for the reign of God in society.
- Call all Catholics in the United States to become authentic and joyful missionary disciples by giving witness to God’s love with a prophetic voice by encountering their brothers and sisters in Christ.
- Invite all Catholic leaders to engage and accompany the most vulnerable and those who find themselves on the peripheries of the Church and society.
In our daily lives, each of us is a missionary disciple, laboring within the harvest that Christ desires: in our workplaces, our families, and our communities where we bring the Good News to those who need to experience its joy the most. The culture of encounter has a powerful prayer of trust and hope to inspire us to labor for Christ:
“God of infinite Mercy, You sent Your Risen Son to encounter the disciples on the way to Emmaus. Grant us today a missionary spirit and send us forth to encounter our sisters and brothers: to walk with them in friendship, to listen to their hopes and dreams with compassion, and to proclaim your Word with courage, so that they might come to know You once again in the breaking of the Bread. Make us all missionary disciples, and stay with us always, as we seek to share the joy of the Gospel with people of all generations, from every race, language, culture, and nation. We ask You this with burning hearts, filled with the Holy Spirit, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and through the loving intercession of our Blessed Mother Mary, Our Lady of Guadalupe, Star of the New Evangelization in the Americas. Amen.”
In this weekend’s Gospel acclamation, St. Paul, the consummate missionary disciple, prepares the way for us:
“Let the peace of Christ control your hearts; let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.”
Teresa S. Redder, OFS
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