Recall a time you helped someone out and received nothing in return.  A time you were not expecting a thank you or even an acknowledgement.  Further that it was a time when no one else knew you were doing it and no on patted you on the back for being good.  Hopefully you can recall this special time and how you felt inside.  Inside you hopefully felt a presence of something very good.  It was a bit of pure love, a bit of God-ness.

 

We all may have wondered at times why Jesus tells us to love our enemies, love those who can not repay us, and to give without anyone else knowing.  He is not trying to give us impossible rules to follow.  He is leading us to an encounter with his Father.  This encounter is what inspires us to dare to love without counting the cost or expecting repayment.

 

Paul speaks of this in the Letter to the Galatians.  He says that the only thing that matters is this new creation; the same creation we experience when we love unconditionally.  Paul says he is crucified to the world.  He means that as he has followed Christ, he has come to realize that nothing compares to the new creation he has come to embrace.  And we know Paul gave himself wholly to his work of spreading the Good News without concern for anything else.

 

That focus on what really matters is also behind the instructions that Jesus gives the 72 disciples he sends out ahead of him.  He told them to bring nothing extra for the journey.  They are to communicate, not only with words, but even more by their style of living.  Having nothing beyond the essentials allows those disciples to demonstrate that what they are sharing is more important for them than the other things they might have wanted to hold on to.

 

This is why Pope Benedict is not considering the sometimes popular idea of priests being married.  It’s not a divine law but a human law that could be changed.  However he (and most people) considers it important that priests, who are called to evangelize, show with their life style that they are to live in the awareness that what they share is more valuable than sex, marriage and family.  It is not saying those are not great gifts or that their lifestyle is somehow superior, but only that they are nothing compared to the message being shared by word and action.  That is the same reason for the promise or vow of obedience that priests, sisters, and brothers take.  It is a saying no to the power one might aspire to as a demonstration that they are about something more valuable.  The same is true for the sisters and brothers in religious orders taking the vow of poverty.

 

Many of us (old enough) rejoiced when the Second Vatican Council spoke of the ministry of the laity and open the way for greater participation in the Church.  Lay persons were now invited to be lectors, extraordinary ministers of Communion, and others ministries in the church.  However included was the awareness that the laity is also charged with the ministry of evangelization.  Here’s the tough question of today’s scripture readings: How does your lifestyle demonstrate to others the great gift of the life of God in you?  Is your life different than those around you who have not had this encounter with God?  Can others see by the way you live that you have found that pearl of great price for which you would sacrifice all else?