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1st Reading: 2 Timothy 1:1-8, Gospel: Luke 10:1-9 Memorial of Saints Timothy and Titus, bishops | USCCB
The First Reading mentions, Timothy and Titus. Two of St. Paul’s closest co-workers and friends, St. Paul speaks to Timothy as a third-generation believer. He refers to the faith that came first to live in his grandmother Lois, and then in his mother Eunice and then finally in Timothy himself. Apparently, then, Timothy’s faith was born in his home, thanks to his grandmother and mother.
The same can be said for many of us. We owe our Christian faith to the faith of our parents and grandparents. However, we can’t say that of St. Paul. His parents and grandparents were Jewish. For St. Paul, it was his encounter with the risen Lord that brought him to the faith in Jesus, most probably leaving him in a situation of conflict with his parents and grandparents.
Both Timothy’s and Paul’s experiences reminds us that Jesus can touch the lives of people through the faith of family members, but He can also touch their lives in other, less conventional ways.
Jesus is always seeking us out in one way or another. In the Gospel reading, He reached out to the people of His time by sending out a very large group of seventy-two disciples with the message, “The Kingdom of God is at hand for you.” And the advice Jesus gave to the seventy two disciples tells us that Jesus was aware that this mission He was sending them on to touch the lives of a bigger number of people spread through a larger territory than He had been on with his disciples would not always be welcome. He told them, “I am sending you out like lambs among wolves.”
But regardless of whether people accepted or rejected Him, the message didn’t change, “The Kingdom of God is at hand for you” Jesus said, because Jesus is always very close to us.
He never tires of seeking us out. Let Him find you.
No matter how ungrateful, how, lazy, how little interest we show in Him, because, again his message doesn’t change, “The Kingdom of God is already near us.” Open yourself to His merciful love and let Him find you.
