That afternoon, many received healing, a word of encouragement, and a gesture of understanding from the Master: as the sun set, all who had sick people with various ailments brought them to Him. And He, laying His hands on each one, healed them. What joy for the sick… and for those who had brought them to Jesus! The apostolate, though full of sacrifice, is at the same time an immensely joyful task. What a great mission it is to bring our friends to Jesus so that He may lay His hands on them and heal them!
The following morning, Jesus had retired to a solitary place to pray, as was His custom; they went looking for Him and tried to prevent Him from leaving them. But He said to them: "I must preach the Good News of the Kingdom of God to the other towns as well, because that is why I was sent." And He went on preaching in the synagogues of Judea.
Today, there are still many who do not know Christ. And the Lord places in our hearts the urgency to combat so much ignorance, spreading sound doctrine everywhere through widely varied initiatives and ways. "Such a mission," Pope John Paul II reminds us, "is not exclusive to sacred ministers or the religious world, but must encompass the spheres of the laity, the family, and the school. Every Christian must participate in the work of Christian formation. One must feel the urgency to evangelize, which is no cause for me to boast, for it is an obligation laid upon me (1 Cor 9:16)." Only if we look at Christ, if we love Him, will we overcome laziness and comfort, step out of the ivory tower that each of us tends to build around ourselves, and help many blind people see Christ, many deaf people hear Him, and many paralyzed people walk by His side—for the Lord counts on our collaboration.
Let us look at Christ in our prayer and also contemplate those around us. What have we done until now to bring them closer to the Lord? Let us look at our own family, work or studies, neighbors, and the people we meet more or less incidentally through hobbies, travel… Have we not wasted many opportunities? Have we not grown tired? Could they not say to us one day that we did not speak to them of Christ, which was what they truly needed?
Considering that the good or evil we do always has a multiplying effect will help us carry out an unceasing apostolate. Those who that afternoon felt Christ pause by their side and lay His divine hands upon them experienced that their lives could no longer be as before. They became new apostles who would spread everywhere that the Way, the Truth, and the Life existed, and that they had met Him. They proclaimed it in their families, in their towns… everywhere they went. That is what we must do.
HCD