5th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Word of God Sunday – 5 February 2023
Pope Francis continually calls to reflect deeply on our call to become missionaries. To be a missionary we do not have to travel to a far-away land. Rather, it means entering what we are doing with soul, as the pope writes, to do what we do with purpose and passion. Then we become a missionary wherever we are: we become missionaries as mothers, as fathers; we become missionaries in our professional life. “Let us go forth, then, let us go forth to offer everyone the life of Jesus Christ.”[1] We are to re-engage in what he calls “a missionary dynamism which will bring salt and light to the world” – the same call that is given to us in today’s gospel.
Pope Francis explores, however, the factors that dim the light and render the salt tasteless. What might some of these be?
The primary factor which covers our light and renders the salt of our life tasteless is that great vice the ancient monastic writers spoke of with constancy – the vice of what is called acedia. Acedia is a Greek word, and it is often translated as spiritual laziness or sloth. However much more deeply it is an attitude that has settled for a purposeless life, a life that is no longer passionate. Ultimately it is to enter a kind of paralysis. Acedia is something that can grip us all and rob us of our enthusiasm to engage our baptismal responsibility to bring light into the world. As the pope points out it is something that we can encounter particularly in the pressure of work when our work itself becomes something distasteful. As he observes:
“The problem is not always an excess of activity, but rather activity undertaken badly, without adequate motivation, without a spirituality which would permeate it and make it pleasurable. As a result, work becomes more tiring than necessary, even leading at times to illness. Far from a content and happy tiredness, this is a tense, burdensome, dissatisfying and, in the end, unbearable fatigue. This [kind of] acedia can be caused by a number of things. Some fall into it because they throw themselves into unrealistic projects and are not satisfied simply to do what they reasonably can. Others, because they lack the patience to allow processes to mature; they want everything to fall from heaven. Others, because they are attached to a few projects or vain dreams of success. Others, because they have lost contact with people and so depersonalise their work that they are more concerned with the road map that with the journey itself. Others fall into acedia because they are unable to wait; they want to dominate the rhythm of life.”[2]
The outcome of all these various patterns, which of course are known to us all in some way and at some time, is a kind of spiritual torpor, a life without purpose and without passion, without soul. Slowly the light inside us grows dim, and the taste of life becomes bitter, we let go of the responsibility we have to be light to others.
Perhaps, we become like the woman who wanted peace in the world, and peace in her heart and all sorts of good things, but who was very frustrated. The world seemed to be falling apart. She would read the newspaper sand get depressed. I have shared her story with you before, but I think it has relevance for what the gospel today and the recent letter of Pope Francis are calling us to. One day she decided to go shopping, and she went into a mall and picked a store. She walked in and was surprised to see Jesus behind the counter. She looked again and again at him, and finally got up her nerve and asked, “Excuse me, are you Jesus?” “I am” he said, “Do you work here?” “No,” said Jesus, “I own the store.” “Oh, what do you sell in here?” “Oh just about anything!” “Anything?” “Yes, anything you want. What do you want?” She said, “I don’t know.” “Well,” said Jesus, “feel free, walk up and down the aisles, make a list, and see what it is you want, and then come back and we’ll see what we can do for you.” She did just that, walked up and down the aisles. There was peace on earth, no more war, no hunger or poverty, peace in families, no more drugs, harmony, clean air. She wrote furiously. By the time she got back to the counter, she had a long list. Jesus took the list, skimmed through it, looked up at her and smiled. “No problem!” And then he bent down behind the counter and picked out all sorts of things, stood up, and laid out the packets. She asked, “What are these?” Jesus replied, “Seed packets. This is a catalogue store.” She said, “You mean I don’t get the finished product?” ‘No, this is a place of dreams. You come and see what it looks like, and I give you the seeds. You plant the seeds. You go home and nurture the seeds and help them grow and someone else reaps the benefits. “Oh,” she said. And she left the store without buying anything.[3]
The gospel today is urging us not leave this store empty handed today but to be ready and enthusiastic to do some exciting work. As followers of Jesus, we are those who have been given the seeds of a new life. These seeds are given to us in the Word of God that is proclaimed to us each time we gather and which we encouraged to remain attentive through the course of our week. To listen to the Word, to ponder it, to wonder about it, to engage it with our questions, to allow it to sink deep within us and take root: this is to be given many seeds.
It is our responsibility to plant those seeds, to nurture them, to cultivate them, to tend them into blossom. If we do not become missionaries of the gospel who will? If we do not speak out the Word of God to others who will? We, ourselves, are to become the living Word of God in the world. The task ahead of us belongs to us, personally and uniquely, as if in some way it depended on us. In a certain way it does! This is not something we can leave to others. Think for a moment if the future of Christianity depended on me, would it have a future? It is with this sense of urgency that we need to enter all that we do with the salt and the light of the gospel.
And in all that we do, may these seven imperatives of Pope Francis echo in our hearts:
Let us not allow ourselves to be robbed of missionary enthusiasm!
Let us not allow ourselves to be robbed of the joy of evangelisation!
Let us not allow ourselves to be robbed of hope!
Let us not allow ourselves to be robbed of community!
Let us not allow ourselves to be robbed of the Gospel!
Let us not allow ourselves to be robbed of fraternal love!
Let us not allow ourselves to be robbed of missionary vigour!
Or as today’s gospel urges us, let not the salt of our Christian life lose its taste! Let us not put our light under covers! Let each of us become the living Word of God to those we meet.
[1] Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium. The Joy of the Gospels. Apostolic Exhortation on the Proclamation of the Gospel in Today’s World (24 November 2013).
[2] EG. n.81
[3] Taken from Margaret McKenna, Parables: The arrows of God. (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1994), 28-29.