It’s very easy to notice in today’s Gospel the call of the Twelve Apostles. But I was surprised by the very challenging mission that Jesus gave to them: go to the lost sheep of Israel… proclaim that the kingdom of heaven is near. And this Israel is the concrete place where we are inserted; we can find lost sheep all around the world. And Jesus added concrete ways to announce it: heal the sick, raise the dead, clean the leppers, expel out devils.

I wonder how Jesus gave such a mission to the first Apostles, who were very unknowledgeable still about what mission is, to us, to me… weak as I am, how can I perform those miracles? I really feel challenged and pushed to do those miracles. But I can only do simple things, that even the apostolate of “presence” I find sometimes difficult, in the middle of our own people. “To be such”, like Teresa of Avila used to say… to be serious with our particular vocation, that others will be touched by Him because of what our
quality of presence speaks of Him. 

Going to Fr. Palau, he felt the call to the exorcism, to free people from the devil’s possession, and the Church answered to him, and to us as well: “In the middle of the people I am your daughter, the militant Church on earth, and I cry with those who cry and I suffer with those who suffer; here you are my father, my doctor, hear my consolation and joy, here your word is the bread of my life, and whatever you do to my members the sick, you do it to me and I am grateful to you for it, and because you look for me and serve me in the sinners, the sick and the afflicted, because in the pain and affliction you console me, for this I will give back to you in this mountain thousand for one” (MR 9,5).

Let us be courageous to follow the call of God, performing the mission that He commands to us, consoling, comforting, giving words of wisdom, visiting the sick, those who mourn… “being such” that our whole being expresses the Jesus who dwells in us.