How Much For All?

August 18: Monday of Week 20 of Ordinary Time, Year A-II:

Ezekiel 24:15-24; Canticle: Deuteronomy 32:18-19, 20, 21; Matthew 19:16-22

Thoughts to help us surrender to Jesus expressing himself through us in ministry.

How Much For All?

“Go, sell what you have...” Matthew 19:21

Does it cost to reach out to others? What if God said to you: “By a sudden blow I am taking away from you the delight of your eyes, but do not mourn or weep or shed any tears.” And that evening your wife died. Or husband.

For Ezekiel, this was the price of being a prophet. Thousands are paying it today as the price of being Christian.

Christians are today, statistically speaking, by far the most persecuted religious group on the planet. According to the Frankfurt-based Society for Human Rights, fully 80 percent of all acts of religious discrimination in the world today are directed against Christians. The Pew Forum estimates that Christians experience persecution in a staggering total of 133 nations, fully two-thirds of all the countries on earth. The Catholic relief agency "Aid to the Church in Need" estimates that 150,000 Christians die for their faith every year, in locales ranging from the Middle East to Southeast Asia to sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Latin America (John Allen, National Catholic Reporter, March 02, 2012).

What price will you pay to be a “priest in the Priest”? Remember, the other side of the coin is “victim in the Victim.”

What will you give—and give up—to make your parish a “missionary parish”? To convert your own life into constant missionary outreach?

PRAY: “Lord, give yourself in me.”

PRACTICE: Put ministry before maintenance.