Go Forth

James Tissot, He Sent Them Out Two by Two (c. 1886)

Ordinary people often do heroic things. We see examples in the news all the time. A person puts themselves in harm’s way to save a person in need. Inevitably, you’ll hear them say afterward, “I’m not a hero; I just did what anybody would do.”

We often think of bravery as a quality by those who react instinctively – running into oncoming traffic or into a burning building. But bravery is really just doing what you know must be done, despite the potential costs to yourself. The truly brave then are not those who risk life or limb without thinking – but rather, those who do know the possible danger full well and who face it anyway, despite their fears.

In the Gospel today, Jesus sends out the Apostles on a mission that requires true bravery. Having spent time seeing him preach, watching him heal, they will now go out ahead of him and on his behalf to the nearby towns and villages. Because we know that the Apostles did a lot of preaching and evangelizing in their later lives, we might forget that this is the first time they are going out on their own. No doubt they were nervous and felt unprepared, and probably all of the things that might go wrong went racing through their minds. After all they were just poor fishermen, most of them, unskilled, not even completely sure themselves what following Jesus was all about, and now they were being sent out into strange, maybe hostile communities with a message of repentance.

And yet, they went. They showed bravery in the face of their mission, despite the dangers that lay ahead. Perhaps you have anticipated what I am leading to – Jesus wants to send us out on mission in a similar way. Don’t we tend to think of our faith as something that we have chosen? As an affiliation or belief system that we subscribe to out of free choice? But a fundamental reality of Christianity is that before we chose the Lord, he has chosen us – he has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavens, as St. Paul says, and so he calls us to use that blessing in our encounter with others. If Christian discipleship is about trying to follow Jesus more perfectly each day, it is also about trying to answer each day his call of being sent by him into the world. There’s no generic or boilerplate calling – God sends each of us uniquely, according to our vocation, in our circumstances right now, to bring the Good News of Jesus to others.

I think we can draw from our Gospel today three brief insights that might help us to answer that call well:

1) First, notice that the Apostles don’t offer excuses. They know they don’t have it all figured out yet; they know they’re still missing many things, still needing God’s grace to be healed of their own imperfections. But they trust in what Jesus has told them – to rely upon him, and not on what they possess, physically or spiritually. In our lives, we don’t have to be theological experts or moral gurus in order to speak about the Lord to another. We only have to be ready to communicate to another why life with Christ is better than life without him, and believe that he will give us the words to speak what he wishes us to say.

2) Second, notice that Jesus sent the Apostles out two by two. The Lord gives us his inner strength in our mission, but he also knows we need support from each other. It’s critical then that we look for spiritual friends who will help support us and keep us accountable in answering our call. Think about who might meet this need for you, and for whom you meet this need. None of us are called to evangelize on our own; we need to strengthen and support each other in our common task.

3) Third, notice that Jesus tells the Apostles not to be troubled by rejection. Going out to proclaim the Gospel, we will encounter hardship and resistance; that’s just the nature of the calling. But when it happens, we should not give it undue thought, allowing it to breed doubt or discouragement within us. Instead, as Jesus says, look ahead to the next place, the next person, because there is always another opportunity on the horizon. Trust in the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and carry on.

Friends, at the end of every Mass, the priest or deacon gives us a simple command: in Latin, “Ite” – “Go” – that is, “Go forth”, “Go in peace,” “Go and announce the Gospel of the Lord.” It is a reminder that this command is not really from the priest or deacon, but from the Lord Jesus. He commands us to go out – to our homes, our workplaces, our classrooms, any and every social setting – to proclaim his Good News to those who might hear it. The Lord sends us out, like he sent the Apostles, to bring his message of faith, hope, and love to those who need it. Let’s be brave in answering his call, let’s support each other, and let’s not be discouraged if we encounter rejection. We surely know well the costs and dangers that can come from living our Catholic faith authentically in this day and age. But we also know it is the Lord who sends us, and he will not fail to provide us all that we need if we show bravery in responding to what he commands, to what must be done in his name. Relying upon him, he can transform the ordinary into the extraordinary, the weak into the brave, the disciple into the Apostle. Let us go forth!