Daily Gospel Reflection

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October 5, 2023

Thursday of the Twenty-sixth Week in Ordinary Time
Lk 10:1-12
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Jesus appointed seventy-two other disciples
whom he sent ahead of him in pairs
to every town and place he intended to visit.
He said to them,
“The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few;
so ask the master of the harvest
to send out laborers for his harvest.
Go on your way;
behold, I am sending you like lambs among wolves.
Carry no money bag, no sack, no sandals;
and greet no one along the way.
Into whatever house you enter, first say,
‘Peace to this household.’
If a peaceful person lives there,
your peace will rest on him;
but if not, it will return to you.
Stay in the same house and eat and drink what is offered to you,
for the laborer deserves his payment.
Do not move about from one house to another.
Whatever town you enter and they welcome you,
eat what is set before you,
cure the sick in it and say to them,
‘The Kingdom of God is at hand for you.’
Whatever town you enter and they do not receive you,
go out into the streets and say,
‘The dust of your town that clings to our feet,
even that we shake off against you.’
Yet know this: the Kingdom of God is at hand.
I tell you,
it will be more tolerable for Sodom on that day than for that town.”

Reflection

Mike Hebbeler
Managing Director for the Notre Dame Programs for Education in Prison at the Center for Social Concerns
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This past spring, I attended a commencement ceremony inside a state prison. Students in the Moreau College Initiative, an academic collaboration between Holy Cross College and the University of Notre Dame, were graduating with associate and bachelor degrees.

Before beginning his remarks, one of the graduates offering an address asked the audience, “Can you hear me?” The crowd of classmates, faculty, family members, and prison personnel nodded. Then the speaker asked, “Can you see me?” What followed was a collective realization from the crowd that the graduate then confirmed with his remarks.

He was not concerned with the acoustics or lighting inside the old auditorium where we sat. He was speaking to his dignity—being heard and being seen—and how a liberal arts education and the cultivation of relationships between and among students and faculty in the classroom served as an expression of this dignity.

This image came to mind as I read today’s gospel, particularly in the announcing of peace with which Jesus tasks the disciples. It is instructive that the sign of peace in the Catholic Mass is the one moment in the liturgy where members of the congregation are invited to acknowledge one another, to see and be seen, to hear and be heard. The starting point for the work of peace seems to be the recognition of another person as a fellow human being.

Today’s gospel invites us to extend that recognition to the people we encounter in whatever environment we might find ourselves—the checkout line at the grocery, the school meeting, our own homes. Perhaps it might also stretch us to enter uncomfortable places and encounter unfamiliar people, offering a gesture of recognition when we’d rather look away.

Prayer

Rev. Steven Gibson, C.S.C.

Dear Lord, we have so many responsibilities and commitments to honor today. Through all of this, we ask that your Spirit remind us again and again about what really matters. Let your peace be ours. Let your joy fill us. Help us to be attentive to the concerns and the celebrations of others. Fill us with gratitude and with the grace to live in the moment. Amen.

Saint of the Day

St. Faustina Kowalska

Many people now know St. Faustina Kowalska for her visions that established the devotion to Divine Mercy, but it wasn’t until after she died that these visions became known to anyone besides her spiritual director.

Faustina was born Helena Kowalska in Lodz, Poland, in 1905. The Kowalskas were a large peasant family who depended upon their children to help keep food on the table. From a young age, Helena felt a calling to enter religious life, but in order to continue providing for her family, Helena worked as a housekeeper.

When she was nineteen, while attending a dance in a park, Helena saw a vision of Jesus suffering. She immediately went to a nearby church to pray and received direction from Jesus to leave immediately for Warsaw to enter a convent. That very night, Helena packed a small bag and left for Warsaw without her parents' knowledge or consent.

In Warsaw, Helena visited several convents but was turned away, due to her poverty and lack of education. After several weeks, one convent finally accepted her on the condition that she pay for her habit. Helena did not know anything about this particular community but felt certain that she had been led there.

Helena worked as a maid for a year to earn enough money to pay for her habit, and, in 1926 she joined the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy, taking the name Sister Maria Faustina of the Blessed Sacrament. She served as cook, porter, and gardener in convents in Poland and Lithuania.

In 1930, while Faustina was praying in her room, Jesus appeared to her wearing a white robe with red and white rays emanating from his heart. He told her to have his image painted with these words inscribed below: "Jesus, I trust in you," in Polish: "Jezu, ufam Tobie." Jesus expressed his desire for a feast of Mercy to be established and for increased devotion to his abundant Divine Mercy.

Faustina began taking spiritual direction from the convent’s confessor, Fr. Michał Sopoćko, a professor of theology at Vilnius University. When Faustina told Fr. Michał of her visions, he recommended she be examined by a psychologist. After a number of tests, Faustina was declared to be of sound mind. Fr. Michał told Faustina to begin keeping a record of the visions and helped her find an artist to paint the image Jesus had requested.

Depiction of the Divine Mercy image commissioned by St. Faustina

In a later vision, Faustina recorded a series of prayers—the Chaplet of Divine Mercy—to be used in the devotion to the Divine Mercy. She wrote that the prayers served three purposes: to obtain mercy, to trust in Jesus’ mercy, and to show mercy to others.

Devotion to Divine Mercy spread quickly in popularity throughout the 1930s. In 1936, Faustina became critically ill with tuberculosis. As the disease slowly conquered her body, Faustina suffered intensely for several years. Her visions persisted, until she finally died on October 5, 1938, at the age of thirty-three.

After her death, the Vatican initiated an official inquiry into Faustina's visions and diary, led by the Polish theologian Ignacy Rozycki. Faustina’s visions were approved as authentic and her diary was published first in Polish in 1981, lauded as "a document of Catholic mysticism of exceptional worth, not only for the Church in Poland, but also for the Universal Church." Devotion to the Divine Mercy was a source of strength for the Polish people who suffered greatly in World War II. In 1958, Pope Pius XII blessed the image of Jesus that Faustina had commissioned to be painted. In 1965, Archbishop Karol Wojtyla of Krakow initiated the review process of Faustina’s life and visions for canonization. When Archbishop Wojtyla was elected Pope John Paul II in 1978, he sped up the canonization process significantly: Faustina was beatified in 1993, and canonized in 2000.

As part of the canonization of Faustina, Pope John Paul II also declared the second Sunday of Easter as Divine Mercy Sunday. In Faustina's visions, Christ himself had expressed a desire for that feast to be celebrated:

"On that day, the very depths of My tender mercy are open. I pour out a whole ocean of graces upon those souls who approach the fount of My mercy. The soul that will go to Confession and receive Holy Communion shall obtain the complete forgiveness of sins and punishment. On that day all the divine floodgates through which grace flow are opened. Let no soul fear to draw near to Me, even though its sins be as scarlet."

(Diary, 699)

To learn even more about Saint Faustina Kowalska, watch this video lecture from the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame.

St. Faustina Kowalska, who shared with the world the deep fountain of Divine Mercy—pray for us!


Image Credit: (1) Our featured image of St. Faustina is in the public domain. Last accessed September 27, 2024 on Wikimedia Commons. (2) The Divine Mercy image used here is also in the public domain. Last accessed September 27, 2024 on Wikimedia Commons.