Christ instituted the apostles as a response to human misery. Today's Gospel tells us: "When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were exhausted and abandoned, 'like sheep that have no shepherd'.". This leads him to say to his disciples: "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; please visitthe Lord of the harvest to send forth laborers into his harvest".. Faced with so much need, it is necessary to send workers to meet it.
Curiously, two metaphors are working together here: humanity as helpless sheep, and humanity as a hopeful harvest. The first stresses our passivity (though not total: sheep can be very useful, producing wool, milk, meat …); the second stresses that we do have something to offer. We can be a good harvest giving forth abundant fruit. In both cases, however, we need taking care of, be it by shepherds or labourers.
And then Our Lord "calls his twelve disciples and gave them authority to cast out unclean spirits and to cure every disease and every infirmity.". Or, to continue with Christ's metaphors, to defend the sheep from the wolves and thieves that could ravage and kill them, and the harvest from the diseases that could spoil it. Thus, the purpose of the apostles, and of the bishops as their successors, is to defend us from all that could do us spiritual harm and enable us to reach our full potential in Christ, that abundant harvest. It is frightening to think that Judas, "the one who betrayed him," became a wolf himself, a disease. That is why our prayer for the workers in the harvest should not be limited to their coming forward, but that they remain faithful to their calling.
In the first reading, Moses tells the people how God says: "I have borne you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself.". He tells them that if they are faithful in the land he is leading them to, they will be God's possession and "a kingdom of priests and a holy nation".. For this to happen, God has given us, in his New Covenant, bishops to be the new High Priests, as successors of the apostles, and other priests as their assistants. Thus, the very institution of the apostles and the bishops is so that God may take us to himself and that we may become "a holy nation". This is understood in the first place by the Church, the new Israel, which must always tend to holiness. A kingdom of priests certainly means "a kingdom with priests"The priesthood of the faithful, that is, with ordained ministers, but it also refers to what is called the common priesthood of the faithful. There is a priestly aspect to all our lives: the daily prayers and sacrifices we offer to God in our ordinary work and life. And ordained priests help us to live this common priesthood, particularly by giving us the sacraments and by their guidance and teaching.
Homily on the readings of the XI Sunday in Ordinary Time (A)
The priest Luis Herrera Campo offers its nanomiliaA short one-minute reflection for these Sunday readings.
