Objective of the week: To develop the disciples’ missionary potential assimilating the missionary intentionality of Verbum Dei
IntroductionThis month we will continue to pray on one of the topics to be presented in the upcoming National Encounter – “Hacer-hacer in the mind of Jaime Bonet.” This week is a time to deepen in our prayer the missionary potential of every disciple. How to do this? First is to be refreshed once again of the truth we have been given from our Baptism. As missionary disciples we are invited to assimilate the missionary intentionality of Verbum Dei. We are not just meant to preach the Word of God, but to be conscious of the intention every time we live out the mission. Our mission has its intention, towards the service of the Word of God – taking up in all our missionary activities, the life and path taken by Jesus. Jesus always listened to the Word of God and put them into practice. By our service to the Word, we are trying to draw people to Christ. In our effort to do this, many times we had to go through patience and persistence for their sake. We are trying to form each one so that they themselves may live out the same mission of Jesus. MondayMissionary potential of a discipleEvangelii Gaudium #120. In virtue of their baptism, all the members of the People of God have become missionary disciples (cf. Mt 28:19). All the baptized, whatever their position in the Church or their level of instruction in the faith, are agents of evangelization, and it would be insufficient to envisage a plan of evangelization to be carried out by professionals while the rest of the faithful would simply be passive recipients. The new evangelization calls for personal involvement on the part of each of the baptized. Every Christian is challenged, here and now, to be actively engaged in evangelization; indeed, anyone who has truly experienced God’s saving love does not need much time or lengthy training to go out and proclaim that love. Every Christian is a missionary to the extent that he or she has encountered the love of God in Christ Jesus: we no longer say that we are “disciples” and “missionaries”, but rather that we are always “missionary disciples”. If we are not convinced, let us look at those first disciples, who, immediately after encountering the gaze of Jesus, went forth to proclaim him joyfully: “We have found the Messiah!” (Jn 1:41). The Samaritan woman became a missionary immediately after speaking with Jesus and many Samaritans come to believe in him “because of the woman’s testimony” (Jn 4:39). So too, Saint Paul, after his encounter with Jesus Christ, “immediately proclaimed Jesus” (Acts 9:20; cf. 22:6-21). So what are we waiting for? The lay missionaries/disciples of the Verbum Dei Missionary Family are guided by the present statutes and desire to live their baptismal consecration in plenitude through the Verbum Dei spirit and mission. It is a call of God in a vocation that is fully missionary and lay, inserted in society. Those who participate in through this reality include youth and adults, singles, married, or persons in other situations of life. (Statutes of the Verbum Dei Missionary Family 16) TuesdayMissionary intentionality at the service of the WordThis missionary intentionality at the service of the Word is expressed in different ways, each one living in the mission from their specific vocation, with their capacities and talents, sensitivity and possibility, integrating themselves in the social media where the members of the VDMFa find themselves. (Statutes of the Verbum Dei Missionary Family 39) The life and path taken by Jesus and the Twelve, and the group of disciples who accompanied them are, the inspiration for our apostolic dynamism. Jesus formed the twelve apostles to be with him and to be sent out to preach, becoming his witnesses. The desire to form apostles among all peoples is a specific element of our charism that becomes the method and intention of our mission. (Statutes of the Verbum Dei Missionary Family 40) WednesdayThose who hear the Word and do itLuke 10:25-28 25 And now a lawyer stood up and, to test him, asked, 'Master, what must I do to inherit eternal life?' 26 He said to him, 'What is written in the Law? What is your reading of it?' 27 He replied, 'You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbour as yourself.' 28 Jesus said to him, 'You have answered right, do this and life is yours.' Luke 11:27-28 27 It happened that as he was speaking, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said, 'Blessed the womb that bore you and the breasts that fed you!' 28 But he replied, 'More blessed still are those who hear the word of God and keep it!' ThursdayMissionary intentionality of drawing people to ChristActs 14:15 15 'Friends, what do you think you are doing? We are only human beings, mortal like yourselves. We have come with good news to make you turn from these empty idols to the living God who made sky and earth and the sea and all that these hold. Acts 4:10-12 10 you must know, all of you, and the whole people of Israel, that it is by the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, whom you crucified, and God raised from the dead, by this name and by no other that this man stands before you cured. 11 This is the stone which you, the builders, rejected but which has become the cornerstone. Only in him is there salvation; 12 for of all the names in the world given to men, this is the only one by which we can be saved.' Out of fidelity to Christ and in justice and love for our brothers and sisters, our preaching and our entire apostolate can never stop pointing clearly and decisively towards Christ… Therefore our apostolic activities focus on leading the people to prayer and to an interpersonal , peaceful dialogue, alone with Christ and in direct contact with the person of Christ… (Constitutions of the Verbum Dei Missionary Fraternity #47) FridayPersistence for the sake of othersLuke 11:5-10 5 He also said to them, 'Suppose one of you has a friend and goes to him in the middle of the night to say, "My friend, lend me three loaves, 6 because a friend of mine on his travels has just arrived at my house and I have nothing to offer him;" 7 and the man answers from inside the house, "Do not bother me. The door is bolted now, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up to give it to you." 8 I tell you, if the man does not get up and give it to him for friendship's sake, persistence will make him get up and give his friend all he wants. 9 'So I say to you: Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives; everyone who searches finds; everyone who knocks will have the door opened. The exercise of the ministry of the Word in its diverse forms aspires to a process of drawing people to Christ, in the measure of the capacities and possibilities of each listener. It is a patient labour of teaching and learning to pray, through which the apostle takes the disciple by the hand towards the person of Christ rather than providing theoretical explanations. We have saved someone when we have taught him/her to pray. Christ will have a new disciple when he/she, through prayer, “comes to know Him” personally, not by hearsay but by personal experience. The fullness of our missionary joy will consist in this. (Constitutions of the Verbum Dei Missionary Fraternity #48) SaturdayMissionary intentionality of transmitting the same missionMatthew 28:19-20 19 Go, therefore, make disciples of all nations; baptise them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teach them to observe all the commands I gave you. And look, I am with you always; yes, to the end of time.' Faithful to the intention of the Word of God and to our Teacher’s greatest concern, we will heed the mandate and final wish of Jesus: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations,” and we will teach them to keep everything that Jesus has commanded us. We will seek that they may in turn be just as capable of making disciples and instructing others, transmitting successively, the same mission of preaching the Gospel which has been confided to us by Jesus. We will seek that no one feels excluded, but rather that they may be administrators of the incalculable riches, rights and duties proper to their Christian identity, conferred on them by Baptism, as priest, prophet and king. (Constitutions of the Verbum Dei Missionary Fraternity #49) Sunday27th Sunday in Ordinary Time1st Reading: Genesis 2:18-14
Responsorial Psalm: Psalm 128:1-6 2nd Reading: Hebrews 2:9-11 Gospel: Mark 10:2-16 Comments are closed.
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