Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time
For whom has Jesus come? If you were to ask some of the first disciples, they would have told you that the Messiah was coming for the people of Israel. And they would be correct. The prophets had spoken again and again to the people of these promises throughout the centuries. Jesus Himself says as much to the Gentile woman we hear of in today’s Gospel. “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” (Matthew 15:24) Yet, what we see beginning to be fulfilled in this Gospel passage is a promise made through the prophet Isaiah. That God chooses to gather the nations into His People. “The foreigners who join themselves to the LORD, …them I will bring to my holy mountain and make joyful in my house of prayer;...for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.” (Isaiah 56:6-7) And the Lord continues in what the prophet proclaims immediately after the section we hear read at Mass today: “Oracle of the Lord GOD, who gathers the dispersed of Israel— Others will I gather to them besides those already gathered.” (Isaiah 56:8) Jesus has indeed come for the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and there are far more of those sheep than most of the disciples would have imagined, coming from all the corners of the world.
The actions and desires of the Lord are that to which we ourselves are to conform our actions and desires. Do we see the lost sheep of Israel when we look around? Do we desire to work with God in the labor of gathering them to Him? Often it seems that amongst Catholics, one only speaks of God among other Catholics (and even then, usually only among particularly zealous Catholics who bring up the topic of religion first). Yet, if today we contemplate truly how universal God’s deep love is and how urgent the divine desire for wandering and hungry and tired souls to be gathered to Him, would we not be moved to consider talking about this loving God with others? Perhaps we would reach out to Catholics who have been away from Mass since they were confirmed years ago. Perhaps we would offer our parish as a place for those searching for meaning to find their life’s meaning in Christ who waits for them in the Eucharist. Perhaps we would reach out to those who are longing to be part of something bigger than themselves and tell them about the universal Church, which finds joy in praying to God in every language on earth every Sunday at Mass. Let us pray to desire as God desires, to want and to speak and act so that others may be joined to the Lord.