LIKE THE APOSTLES… FOLLOWING JESUS SENT BY THE FATHER…

“What are you looking for?”… Come, and you will see… So they went and saw where he was staying, and they stayed with him that day” (Jn 1:38-39).

The apostles walk with Jesus, sometimes without understanding and acceptance. After his Resurrection and Pentecost they understand his mystery, his mission, what he had said before, his signs. They walk with Him with a new pitch, with decision and courage, until death.

“What do you expect from your apostolic career? “What do you seek?” Humiliations, sufferings, crosses? Good! come and see that they are abundant. Let us recall the hardship of our vocation. Do not be afraid to contemplate them as they are. In knowing them better we will have more courage to overcome them. No illusions, but courage! Listen to Jesus Christ saying to his Apostles: “In the world you will have trouble, but be brave: I conquered the world” (Jn 16:33). (De Brésillac, Retreat to missionaries, p. 69).

“Like the Apostles what are you looking for? Finding the answer to this question presupposes a parting, a movement or a process that is done in suffering. Andrew and his companion went to stay with Jesus that night and then realized that the Messiah they were looking for was none other than The Crucified. Brésillac also highlights the inherence of the cross to the ‘sequela Christi’. Staying with Jesus the Crucified demands that we move from one point to the other: leaving our own ideas and habits, and fitting into the very ideas and the lifestyle of Jesus, as did the Apostles.

QUESTION: Sharing the mission of Jesus today, do we resolve to make this journey by leaving our own ideas and our way of living the mission in order to enter gradually and fully into the logic of Jesus and his Church, despite what it costs us?” (Fr François de Paul Houngue SMA).

– Bruno Simplicio, SMA