July 15, 2012: 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time (B)

The other morning as I was driving toward St. Francis for 7AM mass, I noticed a guy walking along the street with his thumb out to get a ride somewhere. I’ve never hitchhiked, but it brought to mind what Jesuit novices are asked to do after they complete 8-months of religious life: a 30-day religious pilgrimage modeled after St. Ignatius of Loyola’s own pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Each novice is given a one-way bus ticket to a Catholic shrine and $35. Where the pilgrimage takes the novice after that is left up to God’s providence and the novice’s prayer. The novices are told to fend for themselves until they return a month later. St. Ignatius foresaw that this month-long pilgrimage without much money would require the novice to beg for food, lodging, and transportation in order to grow accustomed to discomfort in food and lodging. By abandoning all the reliance on money or other created things, the hope is that the novice will grow in his faith and intense love for God and place his reliance entirely in his Creator and Lord.

 
When Our Lord sends out his disciples two-by-two and instructs them “to take nothing for the journey...no food, no sack, no money, no second set of clothes,” it sounds difficult for us who have grown accustomed to air conditioned housing and well-stocked refrigerators. How many of us would travel away from home without at least one credit card, large suitcase, toiletries, electronic gadgets, and several days change of clothes? Beginning with this weekend, the youth groups from St. Aloysius and St. George parishes in Baton Rouge will practice exactly what Jesus commanded his disciples in today’s gospel. During the entire week, they will be living out of their backpacks in the parish hall of Our Lady of Peace Church in Vacherie for their annual mission experience. The students and chaperones will be bathing at parishioner’s homes, eating food cooked by local parishioners, and going out to jobsites where they will help paint or repair the homes of those who qualified for assistance.
    
Why does Jesus command such difficult instructions, to go about our life not seeking comfort or relying on created things? For one thing, Jesus is not asking us to do something that he himself had not already done. He arrived on this earth empty handed, he ministered empty handed, and he departed this Earth empty handed. His hands were empty, but his heart was full of love and trust in His Father. In the Second Reading, St. Paul tells us how truly blessed we are. He said, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavens, as he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world... In him we have redemption by his blood, the forgiveness of transgressions, in accord with the riches of his grace that he lavished upon us.”

On that 30-day pilgrimage with $35 in their pockets, the Jesuit novices learn that they must turn their hearts in total commitment to the Father. As they beg for food, lodging, and transportation on their journey back over a thousand miles to their starting point, they realize that Heavenly Father has given them all that they have, beginning with life itself. Their short-term pilgrimage is a perfect metaphor for our life on earth. Each of us have been chosen by Heavenly Father and placed on this earth with all the blessings of heaven. Some of us may have more worldly means than others, but the blessings of heaven, which are priceless, are given equally to all. The Father’s plan for us is simple, that we, as His children and servants, must love and be love. We must empty our hands and hearts of all things that keep us from loving the Father first and foremost, and do what is His will for our lives. Many of us will say that this is not easy, just as a 30-day pilgrimage with $35 is not easy. But it will be easy, if love is at the center.