proclaiming the good news - 3rd week thursday 2018

What we have just read in the gospel is what is called the universal apostolic mandate.  Go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature.  The verbs are in the imperative command from Christ himself – go… proclaim.

Every vocation, priesthood, religious, single, or married, every vocation, wherever God calls each one of us is a vocation to an apostolate.  Vocation can never be only for the self.  Whatever the vocation is, one cannot remain in a purely passive role.  There has to be some kind of going, there has to be some kind of a proclaiming, perhaps in various ways and perhaps in different degrees, nevertheless all must share in the responsibility of fulfilling the universal apostolic mandate – to go and proclaim the gospel to every creature.

How do we start that attitude here in the seminary?

Fraternal correction is one.  (---------)  wrote me a letter yesterday and I believe there was some serious amount of coaching that happened probably from his classmates.  He is now more apologetic, able to accept where he failed, and able to see where he can correct himself.  Probably there were some mistakes too on our part as formators but the letter already lends a tone for dialogue, something that cannot be possible when we are highly reactive and emotionally charged.  That is a good start.  We may be good in giving catechesis during our Thursday apostolate but if we cannot “catechize” each other in our own community then something is very wrong.

The problem is with ( ---------).  You cannot make a promise after breaking three consecutive promises.  Either he thinks his superiors are fools or they’re too stupid and too dull to even notice.  And that is one insult I cannot personally take.  Probably his more insightful classmates can wake him to his better senses.

The point is we cannot remain passive observers.  Vocation, wherever God calls us, is always a sharing in the life of the community, of the body of Christ, whose growth is dependent on the full functioning of each part.  This was the conversion experience of St. Paul when on the road to Damascus he realized that in persecuting the Christians he was persecuting Christ - that when one member suffers all the members suffer with it, and if one member is honored, all rejoice.