I really like today’s Gospel from
Matthew about Jesus telling his apostles to take on their journey as they go
out as missionaries to the world. He
tells them to not take too many material possessions with them, as this will
weigh them down and make them too dependent on the things of this world. He wants them dependent on God alone. The apostles are to offer a greeting of peace
to each household, yet if they are not welcomed there, they are to shake the
dust from their feet and move ahead on their journey. You can imagine that as I traveled across
Spain in my recent pilgrimage with a large backpack on my back, that I
appreciate the advice to keep the luggage to a minimum.
There a lot of things we carry with us
on our journey – some are physical things, while others are the psychological
or spiritual things we carry with us.
Those things can either help us or hinder us on our journey. I like learning about the saints for the day,
because there is so much we can learn from them. The two saints we have for today, July 12,
are ones that I had not previous heard of. That is not surprising, since there
are many, many examples of faith, some famous, some not, who are examples of
faith for us. St John Jones was a
Franciscan priest who was born in Wales and who was martyred for the faith in
1598. St John Wall was an English priest
and Franciscan friar who was martyred in 1679.
We recently spoke a lot about religious freedom and liberty in our
homilies during the Fortnight for Freedom that our US Bishops declared. As these men celebrated mass and ministered
to the Catholic faithful in England in the era right after the founding of the
Church of England, they knew that martyrdom and death would be near at hand of
this was found out. We, too, find
religious liberties being attacked in our country, and we wonder how bad things
will get here as well.
I thought of the words of Archbishop Chaput of Philadelphia
at the closing mass for the Fortnight for Freedom: "The purpose of
religious liberty is to create the context for true freedom, Religious liberty is a foundational right.
It's necessary for a good society. But it can never be sufficient for human
happiness. It's not an end in itself."
He continued, "In the end, we defend religious liberty in order to
live the deeper freedom that is discipleship in Jesus Christ. What good is
religious freedom, consecrated in the law, if we don't then use that freedom to
seek God with our whole mind and soul and strength?"
What are we bringing on our journey? And do we realize how important this journey
really is? We have to use the religious freedom
we have to follow Jesus and seek God in the many ways he is present in our
lives. Without that, where would we be
in our lives of faith?
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