Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

I bore you up on eagle wings and brought you here to myself. The destination of all of God's carrying is himself: not a land, not a set of laws, not a religious system. The bringing-to-myself is the whole goal. The commands and the covenant are the life that flows from the arrival, not the conditions for it.

While we were still enemies we were reconciled. Paul's formulation is important: the reconciliation happened at the wrong time from our side. This is not the love that responds to progress. It is the love that initiates before there is anything to respond to.

In your twenties the crowds Jesus looks at with pity are the people around you - classmates, coworkers, roommates, the people online who are troubled and abandoned like sheep without a shepherd. The harvest is abundant in the specific world you inhabit. The laborers are few there too. The prayer that asks the master to send laborers may be the prayer that sends you.

Freely you received, freely give. You did not earn the eagle-wings carrying. You received it. The giving that flows from that receiving is the apostolic mission in its fullest form.

His heart was moved with pity. Name one person in your immediate world who is troubled and abandoned - not in general, one specific person. Let your heart be moved. Then ask: am I being sent to this person? One concrete act toward them this week.

Lord, let me see the harvest you have been preparing. Let my heart be moved with pity, not analysis. Send me as a laborer. Freely I received; let me freely give. Sacred Heart of Jesus, I trust in you. Amen.