In this section you can find a daily commentary on the Gospel of the Day.

Saturday 4 December 2021

First Week of Advent

Word for today
The Gospel of Matthew 9:35-38–10:1.6-8

Love is free

Then he summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits to drive them out and to cure every disease and every illness. Then He added: Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, drive out demons.
An extraordinary power, extraordinarily lost. Modern disciples of Jesus are no longer able to heal every disease and infirmity. Why?
The reasons may be numerous, but perhaps it is simply because at some point, even though they were consistent with the objective written in the Gospel’s message – as you go, make this proclamation: 'the kingdom of heaven is at hand’–  how it was done changed. The Gospel’s “how to” is: without cost you have received; without cost you are to give. A power of that magnitude - to heal everyone and everything and even to raise the dead - remained in the hearts of the disciples as long as it was offered to the people according to the evangelical procedure: without cost you are to give.
Once gratuitousness and detachment from possessions were lost, the direction and the very meaning of evangelization and the powers linked to it were likewise lost. Without gratuitousness, love is extinguished, without love, any gift and power is extinguished. Keeping the objectives once love and gratuitousness have been lost is a source of fanaticism and violence. Gratuitousness of the heart is the energy that is the closest thing on Earth to God's creative power. Gratuitousness, translated from the Greek doreàn, is an adverb meaning “without reason, without motivation, for free, donated, a present, a gift."