Jack’s homily today touched heavily on a sequence of orders given in the Gospel reading. It seems that Jesus admonished his followers to 1) go an make disciples of all 2) baptize and finally to 3) teach. His observation was that the church seems to have gotten this a bit upside down. We do lots of teaching and put great resources there. We do quite a bit of baptizing — infants and even older folk. We seem to have somehow lost the first priority, which is to make disciples. I can definitely see that there are a large number of well taught baptized [Catholic] Christians. It is more difficult to see that same number of disciples.
I’m trying not to be judgmental. But, if we were all disciples in love with God, I would think that there might be more evidence in the world. I’m sure I would make a bigger impact if I were more of a disciple.
Be that as it may, there was another thing about the Gospel that caught my attention. Jesus tells the disciples to go [back] to Galilee and go to the mountain. Back to Galilee — back to where Jesus himself began his journey and ministry. Go to the mountain: as Jack reminded us, the mountain is always “close to God.” If it was good enough for Jesus, I guess it has to be good enough for me.
This week, I think I’ll try to get to Galilee and spend some time trying out that mountain. Maybe it will work, and maybe I won’t know if it worked or not. The “knowing” about whether it works is not so important as the willingness to go there.
Time to get walking. Time to head up the mountain. Time to remember that God beyond all names has filled us with Her Spirit.