“The Lord appointed seventy-two others whom He sent ahead of Him”
In today’s Gospel, Jesus sends out seventy-two disciples to preach the good news. The good news of the kingdom of God is at hand! Jesus always wants us to be close to Him. He will always have work for us to accomplish in His name. “From the beginning, Jesus associated His disciples with His own life, revealed the mystery of the Kingdom to them, and gave them a share in His mission, joy, and sufferings. Jesus spoke of a still more intimate communion between Him and those who would follow Him: ‘Abide in me, and I in you…I am the vine, you are the branches.’ And He proclaimed a mysterious and real communion between His own body and ours: ‘He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.’”[i]
Why does God want us to help in His divine plan? “God is the sovereign master of His plan. But to carry it out He also makes use of His creatures’ cooperation. This use is not a sign of weakness, but rather a token of almighty God’s greatness and goodness. For God grants His creatures not only their existence, but also the dignity of acting on their own, of being causes and principles for each other, and thus of cooperating in the accomplishment of His plan.”[ii] There are many times in life where one person does not need another person to help them, but they allow it for the sake of that person. For example a mother does not need the help of her five-year-old daughters to help bake a cake. The mother however allows and desires her daughter to assist so that the daughter can cooperate in the work of creating the cake. The daughter will not only get to cooperate in the work but also will share in the joy of seeing others enjoy the cake and thus she and her mother will share in the reward of their work.
TV COMMERCIAL – Rice Krispies
While the daughters enjoy helping, and eating the delicious treats, the mother gets to hold onto these precious moments with her girls for a lifetime.
Is it easy to cooperate with the divine plan? At times yes; life is easier when we follow His will instead of our own. However, we are in a world that hates the message we bring. Jesus said, “I am sending you like lambs among wolves.” This world can be a scary place at times and we do not bring an ordinary message, but an extraordinary one. In speaking of the world, the Church teaches that the “world” is “the false maxims [teachings] of the world, and the society of those who love the vanities, riches, and pleasures of this world better than God.” [iii]As we go out into the world, God will bless us with extraordinary signs as He did with the disciples. Is it easy for you to cooperate with God’s plan? Why or why not?
When we go out and seek to bring the good news to others, we ask them for a conversion of heart which brings about justification.
What is justification? Justification removes us from our sin and justifies us in God’s mercy. “Justification detaches man from sin which contradicts the love of God, and purifies his heart of sin. Justification follows upon God’s merciful initiative of offering forgiveness. It reconciles man with God. It frees from the enslavement to sin, and it heals.”[iv]
Justification also “establishes cooperation between God’s grace and man’s freedom. On man’s part it is expressed by the assent of faith to the Word of God, which invites him to conversion, and in the cooperation of charity with the prompting of the Holy Spirit who precedes and preserves his assent.”[v]We must let go of our chains to sin. We must let go of the things that bind us and draw upon God’s peace; the same peace that Jesus speaks about in the Gospel reading. When we do this we are really free. Because of our free will, we are the only ones who can do this; God will not force us to assent to Him. As the Council of Trent says, “When God touches man’s heart through the illumination of the Holy Spirit, man himself is not inactive while receiving that inspiration, since he could reject it; and yet, without God’s grace, he cannot by his own free will move himself toward justice in God’s sight.”[vi]
How do we cooperate with the divine plan? First, we must remember that we are cooperating with only one plan; God’s plan. There are times when we wish to sprinkle a little of our own plan into it, but this will not win souls to Christ. “The prayer of faith consists not only in saying ‘Lord, Lord,’ but in disposing the heart to do the will of the Father. Jesus calls his disciples to bring into their prayer this concern for cooperating with the divine plan.”[vii]
We must always pray. “Christian prayer is cooperation with His providence, His plan of love for men.”[viii] If we fail to pray as often as we can, we allow Satan to work on us. However, by cooperating in God’s divine plan, we realize that we are nothing without Him. He is the one who gives us the power to do great things. Christ says, “Behold, I have given you the power…and nothing will harm you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice because the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice because your names are written in heaven.”[ix]
We must never be afraid or intimidated. Jesus says, “The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few”. When we look at a task, it can sometimes seem like too much for one person to handle. God would not put us up to the task if He did not think that we could do it. We have to remember that He is the one who is in charge, not us. He will know if we did all that we could with the time that He allotted us. God has given us this power and while many might try to harm us, our souls will not be touched. We should also try to live a life of simplicity. Jesus tells the seventy-two to carry “no money bag, no sack, no sandals.” How can we know God’s plan, understand it, and follow it if we have too much stuff around us?
How else can you cooperate in the divine plan? We can also look to examples of those who followed God’s divine plan here on earth. There is no other person more perfect than Our Lady. Mary is the perfect example of cooperating in the divine plan. God chose a young woman, His own creature, to give birth to the Son of God. Mary did this under her own free will and freely cooperated with God’s plan.[x] Because of this, she is highly exalted and sits at the right of Jesus as Queen of Heaven and Earth. She also became our mother when Jesus gave her to us on the cross. We should strive to fully cooperate in the divine plan as Mary did.
[i] CCC 787
[ii] CCC 306
[iii] The Penny Catechism
[iv] CCC 1990
[v] CCC 1993
[vi] Council of Trent (1547): DS 1525
[vii] CCC 2611
[viii] CCC 2738
[ix] Luke 10:19-20
[x] cf. CCC 488