How is God calling you to be a disciple?

On July 15, I served as the Communion Service Presider at Heather Heights assisted living facility in Pittsford.  I’ve been a lector at Mass at St. Louis Church for several years, and I recently went through training to help with the Communion Services that my church offers at two facilities each Sunday.

Below are the remarks I gave regarding the liturgical readings of the day.(1 AMOS 7:12-15; 1 EPHESIANS 1:3-10; and MARK 6: 7-13.) About 25 residents attend the service each Sunday. 

In today’s Gospel, Jesus sends out the Apostles in pairs to share in his ministry of preaching and healing.

The Apostles are called to “preach repentance,” and they have no visible means of support such as money, but we’re told that God’s grace is with them as they “drove out many demons and they anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them.”

Like the Apostles and the prophet Amos in the first reading, we have been chosen to be Jesus’ co-workers in continuing God’s plan of bringing healing and grace to a broken world.

Few of us are called to be prophets or to wander from town to town, driving out demons.

But we are all called to be disciples.

It’s a matter of finding out how God wants us to do that.

In the last few years, I’ve personally been thinking more and more about how I can be a better disciple of Christ. I no longer work a full-time job, and I try to do volunteer projects that involve St. Louis Parish and our ministry called Saint’s Place.

Today is my first time being a communion service presider, and I felt called to do this when I heard one of the other presiders speak last fall at Mass. She spoke about this opportunity and the need for more volunteers. I immediately thought that this could be a new way for me to serve God.

I truly think that the Holy Spirit touched my heart that day. If I had chosen not to go to Mass that day at St. Louis, or if I’d been out of town, I would not have heard the message, and I would not be standing in front of you now.

So that experience leads me to tell you that I think that being a disciple of Christ means looking for that opportunity and being open to it.

I know that many of you here today might wonder about ways that you can be a disciple at this stage in your life. You may, like Amos, think of yourself very differently; he thought of himself as a shepherd.

But the beauty of Jesus’ message is that He wants us to be disciples in the day-to-day happenings of our lives, too. That can mean showing kindness to your fellow residents and the people who serve you here at Heather Heights. It can be offering a listening ear to someone you believe may be lonely; or being a cheerful presence in the company of others.

A few weeks ago at St. Louis, at the end of Mass we sang the hymn “They will know we are Christians by our love.” I felt so good singing that hymn.

Some of the lyrics are:

We will work with each other, we will work side by side
And we’ll guard each man’s dignity and save each man’s pride
And they’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love
Yes, they’ll know we are Christians by our love.

 I think you can substitute the word “disciple” for the word “Christian,” as you think about today’s Gospel.

And they’ll know we are disciples by our love, by our love
Yes, they’ll know we are disciples by our love.

One of my favorite Catholic authors is a man named Matthew Kelly. He writes about how each one of us needs to take a few minutes every day to sit in what he calls “the classroom of silence” and listen to God. Today, let’s each of us sit in that classroom and think about today’s Gospel reading of Jesus sending the disciples out into the world. Then  let’s ask God how we can best be his disciple.

Source for some of this reflection: At Home With the Word 2018