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15th Sunday in Ordinary Time
July 9, 2012
Am 7, 12-15
Eph 1, 3-14
Mk 6, 7-13
The first thing that comes to mind after hearing today’s gospel is that preaching is a responsibility of a chosen few; and that preaching means what I am doing now and the formal teaching of the tenets of our faith in catechetical or theology classes. This first impression is very far from the truth. Recent studies of scriptures have uncovered the truth that many, if not all, of the injunctions of Jesus that seem to have been addressed to a chosen few, are actually intended for all Christians. Besides, if preaching is the responsibility of a chosen few, the Christian community would be divided into those who constantly preach and those condemned only to listen.
The root meaning of preaching is to share with others what has transformed one’s life, what has given to it a sense of purpose and direction. If this is the root meaning of preaching, then, it is obvious that this should not be relegated to a chosen few, but it should be the responsibility of us all who have been gifted by God with our faith. In fact, preaching, or sharing our faith with others is the best way of saying “thank you” to God.
Anybody can do this even without formal training because the sharing of one’s convictions in life is something that is done best, not by talking, but through the silent witness of one’s life. In fact, Pope Paul VI, in the Encyclical entitled The Preaching of the Gospel, said that the witness of life is the most important aspect of the preaching of the gospel.
To clarify what I want to say, allow me to share with you an experience I heard last summer during a religious convention. This is an experience of a girl who is studying in one of the universities here. To have allowance money, she worked at the counter of one of the fastfood chains in the city. She belongs to the youth arm of a renewal movement in the Catholic Church that wants to translate in their every day life the values of the gospel. The experience happened at the counter of this fastfood chain where she worked. I will relate it in the 1st person singular.
• After a customer makes an order, we call that order to the kitchen through a microphone. It happens that three or four of us would be calling the same order so that when an order is already ready and slid down the counter from the kitchen, no one among us would know whose order it was. A shouting bout was a daily phenomenon because one accuses another of taking one’s order because she called the order first. Animosity would hang over our shift. It went so far that most of us were not anymore on speaking terms. It was not a situation that one would look forward to.
• This also happened to me. My first reaction was also to get angry and tell the other that I made that order first therefore what was slid down from the kitchen was my order. Remembering what Jesus told us in the gospel not to retaliate when somebody does something wrong to us, I controlled my tongue and behaved as if there was nothing wrong, although I was seething inside with anger.
• After weeks of behaving like this, my companions in the shift noticed it. In fact, one companion in particular, perhaps knowing that she was wrong, asked me why I was so calm and looked so unaffected by what was going on in the counter.
• I thought this was the time to explain to her the convictions I had about putting the gospel into practice even here in this part of the marketplace. I explained to her very simply that I wanted to take my Christianity seriously and that meant putting the gospel values into practice. There was no need for my explanation to be long because my life there in that counter was already an explanation.
• I did not know that she started telling what she heard from me to all the rest in our shift. As consequence, the atmosphere changed. There were no more shouting bouts. Each one of us started to be considerate of the other and to be more sensitive to the feelings of the other.
• The supervisor made the experience in our shift as an example to new shifts in training. I smiled to myself to realize that the gospels, in fact, have some managerial tips for supervisors in a fastfood chain.
The life witness of that girl is worth more than a hundred sermons. Not only priests and religious preach the Kingdom of God. The experience of that girl proves that that is a responsibility of each baptized Christian and each Christian, in baptism, is gifted with the power to help bring about God’s Kingdom. A burst of the Kingdom of God became reality in that fastfood chain because one, just one, was brave enough to let the power of God be as power in her life by living the values of the gospel. It is the power of God that brings changes and not us. The question is: “Do I allow him to be truly power in my life?” Let us not deprive our world of that power. Let us live the values of the gospel in our everyday life, and leave to God the miracle of change.
Fr. Magdaleno Fabiosa, SVD
DWS, Tagaytay City
The Word in Other Words
The root meaning of preaching is to share with others what has transformed one’s life, what has given to it a sense of purpose and direction. If this is the root meaning of preaching, then, it is obvious that this should not be relegated to a chosen few, but it should be the responsibility of us all who have been gifted by God with our faith. In fact, preaching, or sharing our faith with others is the best way of saying “thank you” to God.
Anybody can do this even without formal training because the sharing of one’s convictions in life is something that is done best, not by talking, but through the silent witness of one’s life. In fact, Pope Paul VI, in the Encyclical entitled The Preaching of the Gospel, said that the witness of life is the most important aspect of the preaching of the gospel.
To clarify what I want to say, allow me to share with you an experience I heard last summer during a religious convention. This is an experience of a girl who is studying in one of the universities here. To have allowance money, she worked at the counter of one of the fastfood chains in the city. She belongs to the youth arm of a renewal movement in the Catholic Church that wants to translate in their every day life the values of the gospel. The experience happened at the counter of this fastfood chain where she worked. I will relate it in the 1st person singular.
• After a customer makes an order, we call that order to the kitchen through a microphone. It happens that three or four of us would be calling the same order so that when an order is already ready and slid down the counter from the kitchen, no one among us would know whose order it was. A shouting bout was a daily phenomenon because one accuses another of taking one’s order because she called the order first. Animosity would hang over our shift. It went so far that most of us were not anymore on speaking terms. It was not a situation that one would look forward to.
• This also happened to me. My first reaction was also to get angry and tell the other that I made that order first therefore what was slid down from the kitchen was my order. Remembering what Jesus told us in the gospel not to retaliate when somebody does something wrong to us, I controlled my tongue and behaved as if there was nothing wrong, although I was seething inside with anger.
• After weeks of behaving like this, my companions in the shift noticed it. In fact, one companion in particular, perhaps knowing that she was wrong, asked me why I was so calm and looked so unaffected by what was going on in the counter.
• I thought this was the time to explain to her the convictions I had about putting the gospel into practice even here in this part of the marketplace. I explained to her very simply that I wanted to take my Christianity seriously and that meant putting the gospel values into practice. There was no need for my explanation to be long because my life there in that counter was already an explanation.
• I did not know that she started telling what she heard from me to all the rest in our shift. As consequence, the atmosphere changed. There were no more shouting bouts. Each one of us started to be considerate of the other and to be more sensitive to the feelings of the other.
• The supervisor made the experience in our shift as an example to new shifts in training. I smiled to myself to realize that the gospels, in fact, have some managerial tips for supervisors in a fastfood chain.
The life witness of that girl is worth more than a hundred sermons. Not only priests and religious preach the Kingdom of God. The experience of that girl proves that that is a responsibility of each baptized Christian and each Christian, in baptism, is gifted with the power to help bring about God’s Kingdom. A burst of the Kingdom of God became reality in that fastfood chain because one, just one, was brave enough to let the power of God be as power in her life by living the values of the gospel. It is the power of God that brings changes and not us. The question is: “Do I allow him to be truly power in my life?” Let us not deprive our world of that power. Let us live the values of the gospel in our everyday life, and leave to God the miracle of change.
Fr. Magdaleno Fabiosa, SVD
DWS, Tagaytay City
The Word in Other Words