Daily Gospel Reflection – Memorial of Saints Timothy and Titus, bishops
January 26, 2023
Memorial of Saints Timothy and Titus, bishops
Gospel: Lk 10:1-9
The Lord 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 pay.
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.'"
*United States Conference of Catholic
Bishop Robert Barron
Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus says the measure that you use will be measured out to you. He is speaking about the loop of grace.
God’s love can truly dwell in us only in the measure that we give it away. If we try to cling to it, it will never work its way into our own hearts. But if we give it away as an act of love, then we get more of it, entering into a delightful stream of grace. If you give away the divine love, then you keep it.
Love is described in the Christian tradition as a theological virtue, a habit or capacity that comes as a gift from God. This is true because love is a participation in the divine life. God is uniquely capable of love in the complete sense, since he alone can fully will the good of the other as other.
What makes real love possible among humans is only a sharing in the love with which God loves, some participation in the divine to-be. When we root ourselves in the God who has no need, who exists in radical self-sufficiency, we can begin to love the other as he does.
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