September 26: 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Reading I: Numbers 11:25-29
Responsorial Psalm: 19:8, 10, 12-13, 14
Reading II: James 5:1-6
Gospel: Mark 9:38-43, 45, 47-48

Moses did not think God chose the right person when God chose him. And so God called Moses’ brother Aaron to lead with him. Maybe that is why Moses so readily acknowledged the Holy Spirit moving in unlikely people. He himself felt inadequate to be God’s spokesperson. On our good days when we really are alert to goodness, kindness, compassion, self-giving love through generosity and hospitality to people who are poor or unclean or unkempt or marginalized, we too discover God’s Spirit soars through many unlikely people. As Mr. Roger’s mother taught him, “Look for the helpers.” God is super-generous in endowing people with gifts of palpable holiness. For example, the seventy elders so blessed in today’s first reading received God’s spirit empowering them to prophesy. That prophesy is not telling the future but pointing out the roots of our faith, what God has been saying and doing and calling us to do and say. We’ve each been baptized to share in Jesus’ priestly, prophetic and ruling ministries. We, according to the official Tradition of the Church, are the People of God, the Body of Christ, the sensus fidelium.  

As we reflect on the reading from the Book of Numbers, we see that two unauthorized elders also prophesied! Not surprisingly, that seemed to delight Moses as it would any humble leader. God and Moses are getting some able assistance from some unlikely people. That’s good news.  

Theologian, Edward Schillebeeckx says that every parish has the spiritual gifts necessary for both the life of the community and the mission of the Church. We may not think that is true when too few are volunteer to teach religion or prepare people for the sacraments or initiate people into the Church. We may doubt prophets are in our midst when too few stand up for mental health services for RCSD children or attend a prayer service in a memorial garden for Daniel Prude or recycle and compost so well that we’ve almost no trash spoiling our environment, degrading our planet, ruining God’s creation. We may think we’ve inadequate spiritual gifts if too few are willing to bring Communion to shut-ins who desire the Sacrament. Maybe we want to look at our approach. Do we invite people to a certain ministry person to person because we discern they’d be a good fit for a specific ministry? Do we provide high quality material for them to view and to read and seasoned ministers to observe and good mentors?   

Good mentoring brings forth gentle people to be compassionate guides helping grieving families prepare funeral and memorial services. They may not realize it but they are spiritually gifted like Medad and Eldad. Who is  adept at reaching the hearts and minds of people who are elderly or infirm or disabled or youth?  People with spiritual gifts discover them in the doing. None of us ever thought we could do what we do until we put forth some effort, sought training and put it into practice. As I look back over forty-seven years of Church ministry, I delight in so many people who did not know they had spiritual gifts until they met a need in a most beautiful way. One of the most spirit filled persons I have met is Yolanda who brought communion from the cathedral to lepers fifty miles away every Sunday for fifty years! Less dramatic but equally necessary and graced were Pat and Jack and Dan and Ellen who prepared young couples for the Baptism of their children. Anne and Dorothy and four or five other duos took turns writing the Universal prayer for our parish to pray at each weekend liturgy for one week each month. Valerie and Joan often were on retreat planning teams pondering and discerning themes, writing outlines of talks, publicizing them, recruiting speakers and witnesses to faith and hosting retreatants. Small Christian Community facilitators evoked faith sharing. I was asked to teach religion teachers how to teach religion. Gail’s witness moved me to open myself to a very personal relationship with Jesus. Joanne modeled for me a most profound care for God’s creation long before it was catastrophically urgent. Bob Warth taught us that the Federal budget is a moral document. Rose’s, Penny’s, Ellen’s and Srs Janet, Phyllis and Donna’s stories of migrant ministry are compelling. Marilyn, Sandy, Maureen, et al. are compassionate Stephen ministers; Marita is a wondrous small group leader, building community as insights into sacred scripture are shared. Marv Mich was prophetic in gathering interfaith, multi racial organizers to transform injustices in society. Joyce McAndrew is an enthusiastic prison minister who shared that ministry in a two minute talk at all masses. Joanne and Bill Cala led me to Kenya to witness their educational and medical ministries there. Sr Cindy Sullivan led me to Ecuador to witness her Working Boys Center family ministries; parishioners who moved to Colorado introduced Assumption to that transforming ministry. Spiritual directors right here at Assumption guide retreatants in Ignatian Spiritual Exercises.  

Contemporary saints are right up there with those Moses delighted in and those who Jesus praised in today’s Gospel (Mark 9:38-43), and with ministers St. Paul names as the Church was beginning in the first century. Among them is Deacon Phoebe. (Some bible translations call her minister but the language in which Romans was written call her deacon and everywhere else in scripture that word is translated as deacon.) St. Paul calls Junia and Andronicus “prominent among the apostles.” (Romans 16:7) Scripture also cites Prisca and Aquilla (Romans 16:3-4; Acts 18: 26; 1 Corinthians 16:19;) who were a married couple and co workers of Paul in Corinth, Ephesus and Rome who risked their lives for St. Paul’s sake. They as well as Lydia, Chloe, Synteche, and more were leaders of first-century house churches. The recent Synod on the Amazon found similar leadership today both near and in far flung areas where priests have not been able to reach in many months.  

Pope Francis, like Moses and Jesus, trusts the Holy Spirit in all of us and that is why he is calling a Synod on Communion, Participation and Mission. Look for information on how you can voice your love for the Church, your hopes for the Church in the upcoming Synod in 2024. Romes’ preparatory consultations include us and begin this October and run through April. Your spirit filled wisdom is born of your experience of being a parent, a worker, a neighbor, a son or daughter, an aunt or uncle hoping the Church closely resembles what Jesus said and did. His words and actions as described in the Bible are words and actions we live by, or try to and the Church is made up of all of us struggling to love as Jesus did, no matter what obstacles stand in our way.  

By Dr. Deni Mack, DMin, Pastoral Associate Emerita