Today’s gospel lesson can be summed up with two words: Trust and Perseverance. Trust and Perseverance.

First with Trust - when Jesus sends out the twelve, He tells them not to take anything else with them, no food, no money, no extra clothes, just go and preach repentance and cast out demons, trusting in Jesus.
The only thing they have is this trust and now the authority given to them by Jesus, they trust in Him and that is all they need, despite being relatively uneducated, mostly fisherman, they just trust and go.

It was similar to Amos in the first reading, it didn’t seem like he wanted to be a prophet. He said, “I was a shepherd and a dresser of sycamores. The LORD took me from following the flock, and said to me, Go, prophesy to my people Israel.” Despite not being specifically educated or very well trained, Amos had to put his full Trust in
God, much like the Apostles.

But that was enough, what they had was enough to go out and get started. They possessed a love for God, a strong Trust in him, and that was all they needed.

This coming Tuesday the three newly ordained priests will start their assignments around the Archdiocese. They’ve spent six years in seminary education, and at some level they might wonder if that is even enough, but now it is time for them to step out in faith and go.

They’ve been given the authority from the Archbishop and told to Go.

Whether they are confident or not, I am confident in all of them, they possess what they really need, love of God and a strong Trust in Him. God will sustain them in their efforts, in their mission from Him.

The second thing that the Apostles need here is Perseverance. Jesus told them, “Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave. Whatever place does not welcome you or listen to you, leave there and shake the dust off your feet in testimony against them.”

Jesus is telling them how to handle failure, with Perseverance, He is saying just continue on, there is more work to be done. Jesus knows that His message of repentance will not be accepted by everyone, but that they shouldn’t lose sleep over it, just persevere onward.

The walking stick and the sandals symbolize a determination to keep moving forward, to persevere in their efforts to fulfill God’s will. They must not give up, even when they face opposition, persecution, or a cold welcome, they are not to be deterred in fulfilling their mission. Perseverance.

Every Christian shares in Christ’s mission. When we were baptized, we became members of His body, the same body that reaches out to men and women in every age in order to lead them to God. Every Christian shares in the mission in some way shape or form.

I talked about the vocation to the priesthood earlier, that’s an obvious one, along with other ministry positions, but if we think broader, like you know that every married couple, their primary mission is to help one another get to Heaven. Their secondary mission is to help get their kids to Heaven.

In a broad sense, our mission is to help get our family to heaven, and what that really means is to grow in love of God, to grow in our trust in Him, and to encourage our families and even our friends to do so as well, repenting of our sins as we grow in holiness.

And then when He says “Go” - Go to this family member or Go to that friend, we have to do so, and we have to persevere in the face of rejection. So, practically - I’d like to give two ideas here, two ideas that go along with the opening prayer the Church gave us:

“God, who show the light of your truth to those who go astray,
so that they may return to the right path...”

First, we need to encourage people to go to Mass... We all know family and friends who have just stopped going... We need to invite them to go with us or encourage them to go on their own.

We heard in our second reading, “In him we were also chosen, destined in accord with the purpose of the One who accomplishes all things according to the intention of his will, so that we might exist for the praise of his glory...”

“So that we might exist for the praise of his glory.” Paul is telling us this is why we exist, to praise God, to worship Him together, not alone at our house or while we are out on the river enjoying the beauty of nature, no, God wants us to praise Him together at Mass, with our community.

This is why God freed the Israelites from Egypt, so they could go out to the desert and worship together, to celebrate the Feasts in honor of God. And Jesus tells us to do this in memory of Him, to celebrate this Feast of the Lord’s Supper every Sunday together, to praise and thank Jesus.

Our worship, just like the cross, has a vertical, a me and Jesus aspect, and a horizontal, a me and my community aspect. So we need to encourage communal worship, this is what God wants from us, to go to Mass. We have to encourage others to return. Second, we need to encourage repentance from sin. This was what the Apostles set out to
do here, “they went off and preached repentance” but that infers that people have some sins!

What makes this difficult in today’s culture is that nobody wants to be judged on their sins. Nobody wants to judge. Nobody wants to be called intolerant. But we have to draw the line when it comes to tolerating sin.

Our culture has fallen into moral relativity where we say some things are bad for some people, but okay for other people in other situations.
Take murder for example. In our culture, murder is wrong when a person is killed, if it is a person outside of the womb. But only moments before, a person inside the womb, it is legal. And if someone is suffering and they want to die, then it’s legal for a physician to assist them in their suicide. Or if the person has committed a capital crime, then murder is legal.

See the moral relativity there?

So we believe that God is the one who has the right to say what is right and wrong, good and evil, to define sin.

He defined sin with the Ten Commandments, then He sent us His Son Jesus to free us from our sins through “redemption by his blood” and when Jesus ascended to Heaven, He promised to send us the Holy Spirit to guide us to all Truth. Jesus even left us a Pope to make these kinds of judgments in order to define sin for us and guard the Truth for us.

But it comes down to Trust. We love God. We have this relationship with Jesus. We believe He sent the Holy Spirit to guide us to all truth. God loves us and wants what is best for us, so we Trust in Him, we Trust in His Holy Catholic Church that He has our best interest in mind and guides us through Her leadership.

And when we Trust, we are able to Persevere in our mission to grow in holiness, personally and as a family, as a community.

Encourage people to go to Mass and give God glory and praise. Encourage people to repent and live free of sin.

This is our mission as Christians who love God and know of His love in our own lives, remembering that we too must repent, live free of sin, and go to Mass, every single Sunday.

“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. Amen.”