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| Go into
the whole world and
proclaim the Gospel to every creature |
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...
after he had said that, Jesus was taken up into heaven and took seat at
the right hand of God |
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| Jesus is saying his
"Good Bye" to the disciples. After that he leaves them and
ascends to heaven to be with his Father. On this day we commemorate that
event and with the whole Church we celebrate the feast of the Ascension
of the Lord. |
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| But if you noticed Jesus did not just say, "Good
Bye", did not just shed some tears,
a couple of hugs and left. He left a message with his disciples, a charge, a command. And that command
Go and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Spirit, that command has shaped the nature of the Catholic Church for two thousand years now. |
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| Because of those words the teaching of Christ spread through all the continents. Because of those words missionary congregations came to exist. Many missionaries devoted their lives to bringing the Good News to the ends of the earth, many, many of them lost their lives trying to reach out and bring the Good News of Jesus to those who had never heard it before. |
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| The words we hear in today's gospel reading are very dear to my heart. I belong to the largest missionary order, which is called the Society of the Divine Word. We are also known as Divine Word Missionaries. Our founder, blessed Arnold Janssen, a German priest, founded the order in 1875 in Holland because he felt there was a great need in the world for the Word of God to be heard. |
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| He realized that those last words of Jesus Go to all the nations, he realized that those
words were Jesus' testament, his will that needed to be carried out. Today there are
6000 executors of that will, you may say, because the Society of the Divine Word has that many members. There are
6000 of us preaching the Gospel in more than 60 countries now. |
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| Our missionaries work with the poor and the oppressed in South America, we try to bring peace and reconciliation to the divided and diverse tribes of Africa, we run schools and universities in Asia, countries like India, the Philippines, Indonesia, Japan. We send our missionaries to Russia, the Ukraine,
Byelorussia. We just opened the biggest diocese of the world in Siberia. One of our missionaries was just made
bishop for that region. We also work in this country, the United States. We work with the minority groups, the African-Americans, Hispanics. We work in the poor regions of the country in the mountains of West Virginia, we work in the innercities of Chicago and Los Angeles. |
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| We do all that because of those words Jesus said to his disciples as he was saying his "Good Buy"
Go and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Spirit. |
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| Today when people think of missionary work, they think of those brave priests and brothers dressed in white robes preaching the Gospel to the native tribes somewhere far, far from here. But that is not the whole picture. Today the United States and some countries of Europe are still considered by the Church as missionary
territories. And if you look around yourself, if you watch the news, read the newspapers, you
will realize that we are far from equating this country with the Kingdom of God. |
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| The message of today's Gospel, therefore, is not only for those missionaries working in remote places of our world, not only for the members of the Society of the Divine Word, but for all of us. We all have the responsibility of bringing Christ to those around us. The work is certainly
not done yet. |
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| We don't have to go around baptizing all those who are not
Christians, but we certainly have to show them and one another that we are people of respect, people of justice, that we are compassionate and generous. That's how we become co-missionaries, that's how we fulfill Jesus' last command. And we need to be missionaries and co-missionaries so that when Jesus comes again into the world he will find it
in peace and harmony. |
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Light
a Divine Mercy Candle |
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Mass League |
Mission Rosary |
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eCandles |
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| ©2001 Society of
the Divine Word, USA Western Province - All Rights Reserved |
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