In the Archdiocese there is an awesome program called Totus Tuus, meaning “Totally Yours,” that sends college students out as missionaries to various parishes around the Archdiocese to run week long bible camps for kids and teens.  These college students spend their entire summer evangelizing young people at these parishes instead of getting jobs, internships, traveling, or just hanging out.  These young people are doing what our Lord said in the Gospel today, “I am sending you like lambs among wolves with no money bag, no sack, no sandals.”  While leading these camps they live in the homes of parishioners, sleeping on couches or in spare bedrooms and they eat with parish families.  It is a true missionary experience.  Next year I hope to bring them to our parish because their witness and their ministry is one we should be supporting and taking part in for our own spiritual growth.  

    However, being missionaries doesn’t always include leaving home and going somewhere foreign or new.  When I was a young seminarian in my first year at the college seminary, my first service ministry I was asked to do was work in soup kitchen at St. Thomas of Canterbury parish.  This soup kitchen serves over 200 people, twice a week.  Now, before volunteering for this ministry I had never seen the homeless except for on the street down town.  So when 200 homeless and poor people came in, I was blown away.  It felt like the whole city was in that cafeteria with me.  I was overwhelmed to say the least.  That experience was about six years ago and now that I have had time to reflect on it, I think what startled me the most is all I could do for them was to serve them.  I was a poor college student.  If it wasn’t for the seminary or my parents I would be on the street too.  I couldn’t give them money or clothes or shoes…I only had enough for me. All I could offer them was the food we prepared.  That was a missionary experience. 

    My two favorite quotes from todays first reading are: “I will spread prosperity over Jerusalem like a river, and the wealth of nations like an overflowing torrent…as a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you,” and, “come and see the works of God…He has changed the sea into dry land: through the river they passed on foot.”  Both are from Isaiah and he is speaking of the Exodus story when they passed through the Red Sea.  

    You see, my brothers and sisters, these 72 missionary disciples that Jesus sent out with nothing but trust in Jesus were able to trust in Jesus because they knew of the powerful and loving works of God.  They knew these truths from our first and second reading: they knew how God saved them from Pharaoh in Egypt and from the Babylonians and gave them the promised land and now God has sent them the Messiah!  Because they knew how God was at work in their lives they could trust and go on their mission and follow their vocation.  

    The college missionaries doing Totus Tuus trust God because they have experienced God’s love.  Now they are able to stay in the homes of strangers, give up a summer of making job connections, and teaching the faith to young children and high schoolers.  I was able to follow my vocation to priesthood and to return to that soup kitchen each week because I knew God provided for my life and now he was going to provide for these people who needed something to eat, someone to care for them, someone to talk to them.  My brothers and sisters, our God is an awesome God who keeps his promises and will comfort us as a mother comforts her child, God will give us prosperity when we feel dry, and he will dry up waterways so we can safely pass through.  

    Now is the time for you and me to remember those times when God was there.  Recall those times you knew Jesus was standing next to you at either a moment of joy or sorrow.  Remind yourself of those encounters you had with the risen Jesus, either through a conversation with a close friend, at the birth of your child, when a parent or family member helped you, or within the context of the Sacraments.  We will all encounter the risen Jesus here, on this altar, very soon.  Trust in Him!  He is a good and gentle God who is Love.  Once you trust him, ask for your mission and vocation, and then follow Him.