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甲年—常年期第11主日

Fr. Jijo Kandamkulathy CMF

甘天霖神父

Gospel: Matthew 9:36–10:8 （玛9：36-10：8）

A Reading from the Holy Gospel according to John,

Glory to you, O Lord!

At the sight of the crowds, his heart was moved with pity for them because they were troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, "The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest."

Then he summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits to drive them out and to cure every disease and every illness. The names of the twelve apostles are these: first, Simon called Peter, and his brother Andrew; James, the son of Zebedee, and his brother John; Philip and Bartholomew, Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James, the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddeus; Simon the Cananean, and Judas Iscariot who betrayed him. Jesus sent out these twelve after instructing them thus, "Do not go into pagan territory or enter a Samaritan town. Go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. As you go, make this proclamation: 'The kingdom of heaven is at hand.' Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, drive out demons. Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give.

The Gospel of the Lord.

Praise to You, Lord Jesus Christ.

Homily: You are chosen for a responsibility – not a privilege

Priests and nuns are in constant and dramatic decline: What to do? The answer is almost obvious: “Pray to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” However, restricting ourselves to these categories of Christians the application of the proposed Gospel passage is not right and even dangerous. It leads us to think that they will only have to commit to community service and assume that God’s people is a flock without a shepherd, being a “harvest” that is not collected and is lost for lack of “reapers”.

The twelve disciples—let’s say it now—do not represent the priests and nuns, but the whole people of God. Whatever one’s condition of life be (married or single, learned or ignorant, strong or weak ...) everyone has to engage oneself in the construction of God’s kingdom.

The context of choosing the 12 apostles is the compassion of Jesus  for his people because he does not see anyone taking care of them: not political leaders, nor the religious authorities. All are driven by the pursuit of their own interests, their own advantages and prospects for advancement. They aim at privileges; they want to improve their own lives and neglect the people who are hungry, sick, living oppressed and victim of abuses.

Jesus is sensitive to the needs and the human pain. The verb ‘splagknizomai’ for compassion occurs only twelve times in the Gospels. It is always used to express the profound emotion of God or of Christ towards people. Here it is applied to the feelings that Jesus experiences: he does not remain aloof, does not watch with detachment and disinterest the condition in which his people struggle, but he is moved. He feels a visceral emotion.

This compassion leads him to intervene. He initiates a new people, called the twelve, and this number refers to the twelve tribes of Israel.

Jesus enjoins these disciples to continue his work. For this, he wants, first of all, that they pray, because only in prayer they can assimilate the sentiments of God. Then he gives them authority to drive out evil spirits and to heal the sick.

In the last verses, the mission to which the disciples are called is again invoked: “Go and proclaim the message: The kingdom of heaven is near. Heal the sick, bring the dead back to life, cleanse the lepers, and drive out demons” (vv. 7-8). It is—as it is easy to check—of what Jesus himself did (Mt 9:35; 4:17). Christians are thus called to devote all their energies to “reproduce” to make their Master present in the world. He is the first worker sent into the harvest, the disciples are his collaborators, as Paul well understood (1 Cor 3:9).

The passage concludes with the injunction, “You received this as a gift, so give it as a gift” (v. 8), is the demand of complete detachment from any form of self-interest in the performance of apostolic action.

The disciple of Christ does not work to get some personal benefit: to be known, esteemed, revered, to enrich himself. He offers free his readiness, as did the Master. His only reward will be the joy of having served and loved the brothers with the generosity of which he has seen Jesus operate.

证道：蒙召选是重任而非特权，慈心引领门徒随时侍奉！

司铎和修女的人数在持续下降：接下来怎么办呢？答案是非常明显的：“求庄稼的主人派遣工人，来收他的庄稼。”然而，把我们限定在这类基督徒而应用福音讯息是不正确的，甚至是危险的。它误导我们认为：他们只需要致力于团体服务，并假设天主子民是没有牧人的羊群；对于“收割成果”来说，并不是在于收集，而是在于因缺乏“收割者”而失去。

我们现在说，十二门徒并不等同于司铎和修女，而是天主的全部子民。不管我们是何种生活状态（结婚或者单身，博学或者无知，强壮或是软弱等等），每个人都要参与天主国的建设。

拣选十二位门徒的背景是耶稣对他的子民心生慈心，因为他看到没人照顾他们：不是政治领袖，也不是宗教当局。他们都是被自己的追求、自身升迁的优势和前景所驱使着。他们的目标是在于特权；他们想要提升自己的生活，却忽视那些饥饿的人、患病的人，以及在被压迫和虐待中生活的受害者。

耶稣对人类的需要和苦痛非常敏感。表示“怜悯（慈心）”的动词在福音中只出现了十二次，每次都在表达天主或基督对人们的深厚情感。在这里，这词被用于表达耶稣的经验感受：他并非一直冷漠旁观，也不以超然和不关心的态度注视他人民的挣扎，他反而被触动了，感受到一种发自肺腑的情感。

慈心引领他介入其中。他开启了一个新子民，被称为“十二位”，而这个数字与以色列的十二支派密切相关。

耶稣命令这些门徒继续他的事业。为此，他首先要求他们祈祷，因为只有在祈祷中，他们才能融入天主的情感中。然后，他赐予他们权力驱逐恶魔，并治愈病人。

在最后一节中，门徒们蒙召的使命被再次唤起：“你们在路上应宣讲说：天国临近了。病人，你们要治好；死人，你们要复活；癞病人，你们要洁净；魔鬼，你们要驱逐”。这是耶稣所做的事情，很容易核实的（玛9：35；4：17）。因此，基督徒蒙召将整个生命致力于“生育繁殖”，好使基督徒的主在世界上临在。基督是第一位被派遣来收割的工人，门徒们是他的收集者，正如圣保禄的深刻认识：“我们原是天主的助手，你们是天主的庄田，是天主的建筑物”（格前3：9）。

这段话以劝告结束：“你们白白得来的，也要白白分施”，是要求在门徒的行动执行中，完全放弃任何形式的个人利益。

基督的门徒并不为获得个人益处而侍奉：成为名人、受人尊重、被敬仰、丰富自己；而是如同主基督所做的，随时乐意侍奉。他唯一的奖赏就是看见耶稣慷慨侍奉和兄弟之爱行动中的喜乐。

文本来源：雅颂福传

翻译：Fr.James