Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle B
Reflecting on Mark 6: 7-13
As I write this, Colorado is on fire. In the past month over 32,000 people have been evacuated from their homes, some leaving so fast that they were separated from pets and possessions and photographs they would surely have gathered if there had been time.
Along with the gratitude of escaping the fires (which has taken six lives this season in Colorado) comes the discomfort of being without so many of the things that make our lives manageable. Imagine moving into a relative’s home and being without your car, your bike, your laptop, your Kindle, your gym clothes, your prescription pills and vitamins, your daily prayer journal, etc. etc.
Imagine the kids in the guest homes, doubling and tripling up in rooms they once had to themselves. And everybody sharing the same television set! How you’d miss that long shower in the morning. And it would be so nice to have a set of clothes other than the ones you were wearing when you fled the fire.
That all supposes that you have a friend or relative to take you and your family in, but of course thousands have been sharing the limited resources of the shelters.
The Twelve in today’s Gospel are instructed to “take nothing for the journey”. Of course they volunteered for that journey. The evacuees were forced away, and many fled for their lives, leaving behind priceless mementos of their deepest loves. We pray for all of them, that their empty hands may be filled with the grace God alone can give.
Have you ever encountered grace through being stretched out of your comfort zone?
My dear friends Barb and John Gallagher helped me with this column. They live in Colorado Springs and personally know people who endured the terrors of the Waldo Canyon fire.
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I have come to light a fire on the earth; how I wish it were already burning (Lk.12:49).