Carry the gospel with you

Gospel reading of the day:

Matthew 10:7-15

Jesus said to his Apostles: “As you go, make this proclamation: ‘The Kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, drive out demons. Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give. Do not take gold or silver or copper for your belts; no sack for the journey, or a second tunic, or sandals, or walking stick. The laborer deserves his keep. Whatever town or village you enter, look for a worthy person in it, and stay there until you leave. As you enter a house, wish it peace. If the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it; if not, let your peace return to you. Whoever will not receive you or listen to your words go outside that house or town and shake the dust from your feet. Amen, I say to you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town.”

Reflection on the gospel reading: The gospel reading today focuses on two themes: the first is security, and the second is hospitality. Jesus calls the apostles in today’s gospel reading to trust that God will provide; he asks the apostles to let go of material things to gain the freedom to be disposed ever before everything else to the needs of the kingdom. Implicit in the gospel is the recognition that material concerns can anchor us in a place and time, but if we are unattached to the things we own, we ever are disposed before all else to the concerns that the kingdom places upon us.

Jesus also asks us to put our material belongings at the disposal of the gospel. When someone who works for the establishment of God’s reign needs our assistance, the gospel that Jesus preaches places on us the duty of hospitality.

So today the gospel leaves us with a twofold lesson. We are to be free of our possessions if we serve best the kingdom. And we are to be free with our possessions if we serve best the kingdom.

Saint of the day: Christianity arrived in China by way of Syria in the 600s. Depending on China’s relations with the outside world, Christianity over the centuries was free to grow or was forced to operate secretly. Saint Augustine Zhao Rong was a Chinese diocesan priest. Augustine Zhao Rong was a Chinese soldier who accompanied Bishop John Gabriel Taurin Dufresse (Paris Foreign Mission Society) to his martyrdom in Beijing. Augustine was baptized and not long after was ordained as a diocesan priest. He was martyred in 1815.

Among the 120 martyrs the Church today celebrates was an eighteen year old boy, Chi Zhuzi, who cried out to those who had just cut off his right arm and were preparing to flay him alive: “Every piece of my flesh, every drop of my blood will tell you that I am Christian.” The 120 martyrs whom the Church recognizes today died between 1648 and 1930. Most of them (eighty-seven) were born in China and were children, parents, catechists or laborers, ranging from nine years of age to seventy-two. This group includes four Chinese diocesan priests. The thirty-three foreign-born martyrs were mostly priests or women religious, especially from the Order of Preachers, the Paris Foreign Mission Society, the Friars Minor, Jesuits, Salesians and Franciscan Missionaries of Mary. Beatified in groups at various times, these 120 martyrs were canonized in 2000.

Spiritual reading: All speech and reasoning, all slogans and suggestions are not worth that minute of silence in which the soul yields itself to the embrace of the Spirit. For it is in solitude and silence that Christ speaks to the heart. (Dorothy Day)