A reading of the holy gospel according to Matthew. Jesus said to his disciples, as you go, make this announcement. The reign of God is at hand. Cure the sick, raise the dead, heal the leprous, expel demons. The gift that you have received, give as a gift.
Provide yourselves with neither gold, nor silver, nor copper in your belts. No traveling bag, no change of shirt, no sandals, no walking staff. The workman, after all, is worth his keep. Into every town or village that you come, look for a worthy citizen and stay with him until you leave. As you enter his home, bless it.
If the home is deserving, your blessing will descend upon it. If it is not, your blessing will return to you. This is the gospel of the lord. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen. Today we are celebrating with joy and with some recollection, I hope, that is recalling the past, the feast of Saint Barnabas Apostle.
Now Barnabas came from Cyprus. He winds up in Jerusalem as an apostle. He was a Jew. But he came from Cyprus, you see, he wasn't from the mainland. And we find him being sent by the apostles in Jerusalem, notice that, to Tarsus to find Saul or Paul, and then together they come back to Antioch.
Now Antioch Assyria, there seems to have been at the earliest stages of the beginnings of Christianity a vigorous Christian community there. And so Paul, Saul, and Barnabas enter upon their apostolate, the fulfillment of their vocation in Antioch Of Syria. And there, for the first time, the apostles were called Christians in Antioch Of Syria. See, up to that time it had been referred to as the new way. Saul was called.
He had a vocation in a very special and dramatic way. We don't know how Barnabas was called precisely, but they certainly were operating explicitly from the book of the Acts from the first reading today, they were operating under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Consciously or in some other way, they were aware of what God wanted them to do. And so they put their hand to the plow and started the work and the labor in the vineyard of Christ, doing what they were called upon to do. They were following their vocation.
Now, this word vocation used to have a very restricted meaning, and unfortunately it still has. We say she or he has a vocation or had a vocation, meaning they were called to, as we said, the religious life, male or female. Well, you see, that's a very, very truncated view, completely inadequate. Every single Christian has a vocation. They got it at their baptism, explicitly, dramatically, spectacularly, any word you want to use.
It was given to them. They got the call at their baptism. Now, the rest of life is supposed to be spent in following out that vocation. And by and large, people elect either to serve God see, we actually have no moral choice in the sense in which we have a physical choice. We can choose not to do it, but we are obligated by that vocation that we got in our baptism, which is also a commitment made in our name for the most part, most often.
We have that. Now the rest of life is the living of it. It's the going forth. It is the carrying of the good news in word and in deed, in in doctrine, as we said in the opening prayer of this mass. It is carrying that good news.
So no matter what we do, it's almost irrelevant to the purpose that each one of us has. Whether it's in the married state or the unmarried state, as a priest, as a nun, as a celibate, in the world, it makes no essential difference. We all have the same vocation. Why did God make you? He made me to know him, to love him, to serve him in this world, and thus to be happy with him for eternity in the next.
We have no choice about that. And in the absolute sense, if you think about it, what we do, I mean the kind of thing we do, it has an importance, of course it has, but it is not the essential thing. It is how we do it. How we do it. It's the quality of our lives.
Do we have that perspective? Are we conscious of that calling? Now, here's another little point, secondly, and that is we think of vocation as static, that he chose the married life, she chose the married life, he chose to be a priest, she chose to be a nun, this person for certain reasons to be a Sullivan, or find themselves Sullivan's. Now here's the point. That's only the beginning of the thing.
That's only the beginning. When Barnabas goes up to Tarsus to pick up Saul and brings him back to Antioch, he could have I don't know what they talked about. I wasn't there, you know. But the thing is, it's obvious that that that Barnabas went up to Tarsus to bring Saul back for a purpose. And then we have the explicit statement about their calling.
Did they know what that was going to mean when they said yes to God? When a man and a woman stand at this altar and plight their lives to each other, do they know what it's going to mean? Does a man or the woman committing themselves to the priesthood or to vows, do they know what the years are going to hold? Does the young man or the young woman remaining a celibate in the world today know what next year is going to be? What vocation is going to entail specifically, who knows it?
But you see, we think in these static terms. She's married, she's a priest, she's a celebrant, she's a bachelor. That's not the way it is at all. Look what happened to Saul or Paul. Look what happened to that man.
From being called to be a Pharisee, to being called to be on fire in persecuting these followers of this ignoramus, this unknown from up around Nazareth, that he goes out goes out to arrest them, to bring them back to Jerusalem. Then something happens. He has a calling. He gets another insight into his vocation. Notice, this conversion of Paul wasn't all as great as some people think it was.
He never changed his attitude towards God. He never changed his attitude toward doing what God wanted him to do. It's just that he saw it was a different kind of thing God wanted him to do. And so he did it. And then no longer does no sooner does he get settled back in Tarsus, and Barnabas crops up and says, Look, we've got to go to Antioch.
And that was the beginning. Four journeys of Paul before he winds up in Rome and becomes a martyr. We mustn't think of our vocation as static. We all have our calling, but that can change from day to day in the special way that it's going to be implemented. How are we going to fulfill it?
From day to tomorrow we don't know for sure how we're going to do it. We don't know what's going to happen to us. We know things are going to change. We change, the world changes, all kinds of things happen to us. All kinds of things happen to us.
But there's one thing that doesn't change: our vocation. And I often think about that. When I drive down a 495 and Holy Cross Hospital looms up there, you say, Think of all those people in there, patients, those who are serving them, those who are supporting the hospital in one way or another. They almost every one of them think of themselves as being detached from the main current of life. In a sense, they have been detached from the main current of life.
A husband is there worrying about his family, what he's going to do, how they're going to get along. A mother is there full of anxiety about her home and what's going on. Think of that when you're driving down 495. But how many are conscious that in that hospital, whatever their state, they have their calling? And it's going to be fulfilled right in that particular situation.
Not at home, not tomorrow, and not next year, but right then and there, under the circumstances which they find themselves. Circumstances that they would pray to God to change. And they are praying in many instances to change it. But do they realize that as they pray, they have to pray for the grace to grasp it and to understand that this is where God wants them? And that here is their they are going to fulfill their vocation here just as much as if they were with their families or down at the job.
You'll say, this is crazy talk. Is it? Is it? Or is this what Christ tells us? I believe it's what Christ tells us.
We have a calling, and it is a calling to the here and the now, not yesterday and not tomorrow. It is a calling which is dynamic if we make it so. It can be utterly stagnant if we want it so. This comes all back to this opus dei business, the work or the labor or the job of the Lord. Think of it in the present, the presence of God, his calling you at this today to do his work.
Today, not yesterday, not tomorrow, today, in the circumstances that you've been surrounded by them that you find yourself. Grasp it consciously. Put your shoulder behind the wheel and plow ahead if you'll pardon the mixed matter. In the name of the father, son, and holy spirit. Amen.