14th Week in Ordinary Time
My heart is overwhelmed. (Hosea 11:8)
Tradition has it that as St. John neared the end of his life, people flocked to the Island of Patmos to celebrate the Sunday Eucharist with him. John was old and frail, and he had to be carried out to the people each Sunday, but it never stopped him from giving them the same message week after week: “Little children, God loves you. Love him and love one another.” That’s all John ever said, but the people still came. When asked why he kept repeating the same words, he answered, “Because that’s what the Master kept saying.”
Today’s first reading shows us that the prophet Hosea might well have said the same thing! Speaking in the name of the Lord, the prophet recounts Israel’s infidelity and sins—and yet he insists that God has never stopped loving them. In a moving poem, he shows that God’s love is eternal, intimate, unconditional, and immutable. And when this love is poured out on his people, it’s called mercy.
Just like St. John, Hosea wanted his people to experience this mercy, not just hear about it. It sounds so attractive, doesn’t it? But to quote Pope Francis, “It is not easy to entrust oneself to God’s mercy, because it is an abyss beyond comprehension. But we must! ‘Oh, Father, if you knew my life, you would not say that to me!’ Why, what have you done? ‘Oh, I am a great sinner!’ All the better! Go to Jesus: he likes you to tell him these things. . . . He forgets, he kisses you, he embraces you, and he simply says to you, ‘Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more.’ That is the only advice he gives you.”
Or consider God’s revelation to St. Faustina, a Polish sister who lived just prior to World War II: “I am love itself. My heart overflows with great mercy for souls, especially poor sinners. Let no one fear to draw near to me, even though their sins be as scarlet. My mercy is greater than all your sins.”
God loves you. Believe it! No matter what you have done, no matter what anyone has done to you, he hasn’t rejected you. Let him show you his love and his mercy. Let him tell you over and over again, “I love you. Love me and love one another. I love you!”
“Father, fill me with your love!”
Psalm 80:2-3, 15-16
Matthew 10:7-15
Saint Bonaventure (1221-1274)
Franciscan, Doctor of the Church
Life of Saint François, Legenda major, ch. 3 (trans. ©Franciscan Institute of Saint Bonaventure University, 2000)
"As you go, make this proclamation: 'The kingdom of heaven is at hand.' "
One day while he was devoutly hearing a Mass of the Apostles, the Gospel was read in which Christ sends out his disciples to preach and gives them the Gospel form of life, that they may not keep “gold or silver or money in their belts, nor have a wallet for their journey, nor may they have two tunics, nor shoes, nor staff." Hearing, understanding and committing this to memory, this friend of apostolic poverty was then overwhelmed with an indescribable joy. "This is what I want," he said, "this is what I desire with all my heart!" Immediately, he took off the shoes from his feet. put down his staff, denounced his wallet and money, and, satisfied with one tunic, threw away his leather belt and put on a piece of rope for a belt. He directed all his heart's desire to carry out what he had heard and to conform in every way to the rule of right living given to the apostles.
Through divine prompting the man of God began to become a model of evangelical perfection and to invite others to penance. His statements were... filled with the power of the Holy Spirit, they penetrated the marrow of the heart, so that they moved those hearing them in stunned amazement. In all his preaching, he announced peace by saying: "May/he Lordgiveyou peace." Thus he greeted the people at the beginning of his talk. As he later testified, he had learned this greeting by the Lord revealing it to him...
Therefore, as the truth of the man of God's simple teaching and life became known to many, some men began to be moved to penance and, abandoning all things, joined him in habit and life.