Once again, we come together as a global family to start preparing for the Season of Creation 2025—a time of deep prayer, action, and advocacy to care for our common home. From September 1, the World Day of Prayer for Creation, to October 4, the Feast of Saint Francis of Assisi, we will unite in hope and commitment to restore peace with Creation. Isaiah paints a stark image of a world wounded by human injustice, a creation crying out for peace. This vision resonates deeply with us: our planet is suffering, and yet, we believe in the promise of renewal and restoration. Our call is to be active agents of change — praying, acting, and transforming our way of living in communion with creation and the Creator. As Pope Francis reminded us during the Jubilee of Volunteering: “In the deserts of poverty and loneliness, all those small gestures are helping to make a new humanity blossom in the garden that is God’s dream, always and everywhere, for all of us.” This Season of Creation, let us walk together in metanoia (repentance), to build peace, to restore our relationships, and to help God’s creation blossom.
The goodness of God is seen in the extravagant generosity with which God gives gifts. This is described in the psalm in the boundlessness and universal scope of God’s generosity. Like the rain that falls on the entire landscape, the blessings of God are showered on all. These blessings are true gifts. They have not been earned, nor can they be repaid. However, only the humble can receive the gifts of God. Only those who can admit their neediness are open enough to realise that God’s blessings are gifts freely given, not compensation for a job well done. Without a humble spirit we are unable to receive gifts as gifts. And just as we have received from the bounty of God, so we are called to give to others. Only those who have received with a humble spirit can give with the generosity of God, for they know that they do not deserve God’s goodness and they do not require anything in return.
The vision of a disciple must be the vision of God. Disciples must see with wide angled lenses that enable them to recognise that God offers the grace of salvation to all. The passages from both Isaiah and Luke are astounding in their inclusivity. They show that God’s saving grace is unbounded. It reaches out to those whom the people of God may not only distrust but sometimes even despise. The psalm refrain is the command to go out to the whole world. The first reading describes God sending fugitives back home to get their relatives. People are gathered into the community of the saved primarily because others have been sent out to get them. Today that command is directed to us. We are the ones who are being sent out to bring others to God. All Christians are called to the task of spreading the good news of the gospel. This is not an option; it is a responsibility.
As disciples we commit ourselves to values and principles that are not always cherished by others. We can be misunderstood for our beliefs, even ridiculed. Our lives may be a reproach to those who do not share our aspirations. There may be times when we must stand in opposition to others. All of this tends to alienate us. It could even place us at enmity with those whom we love. Yet, if we are genuinely committed, we realise that there is also a price to pay if we are not faithful. It is very difficult to live with ourselves when we disregard our deepest convictions and ignore the promptings of God that we experience within ourselves. As difficult as a life of faith may be, we know that it is the only way to live in this world. Faced with the cost of discipleship we are brought to the realisation that, by ourselves, we do not have the necessary resources. We need support and assistance from Jesus who came to set the world and our hearts on fire.
While we live in the expectation of the coming of God in the future, we also live now in the presence of God. This means that God is present with us now, as a companion in our lives. It also means that this presence is the context within which our lives unfold. However, until all things are brought to fulfilment, we live in this presence by faith. Faith and hope are intimately joined. As believers we are called to trust in the promises of God, even when what is promised seems impossible. We are assured that we will be blessed, but we can never be sure of the exact nature of the blessing. In faith, we put our trust in God and then carry out our responsibilities. In faith we wait for the Lord, who is our help and our shield, not really knowing under what guise he will come to us. Faith is both the cost of living as a disciple and the reward.
Our tradition tells us that “the earth and all that is in it belongs to God” (Psalm 24). In these times of planetary vulnerability, there is some urgency about the call to place our trust in the goodness of a generous God, to reduce our ecological footprint and to acknowledge that the good things of the earth belong to God and to all of God’s people, not just to the privileged few. In refusing to “store up treasure” for our own selfish ends, we become forever “rich toward God”. This applies to nation-states as well as to individuals. We have some responsibility for what is done in our name, for the size and deployment of our foreign aid budget for instance. The command to “be on your guard, be ever vigilant” in this respect is a demand for gospel justice.
The readings invite us to reflect on prayer. Whether our prayer be praise, contrition, thanksgiving or petition, it always recognises our need for God. In the gospel Jesus instructs us to ask for what we need. He assures us that God is more than willing to give us what we need. However, for this to happen we must turn to God and humbly acknowledge our need. The most obvious characteristic of prayer depicted in the readings for this Sunday is persistence. They show that it is not so much that we persist in prayer in order to change God’s mind as it is that we persist in order to discover what God’s mind might be. The salutariness of prayer is often found in the change that it effects in us, not in God. By persevering in genuine prayer we may come to acknowledge that all things are in God’s hands, and that we can rest content to leave them there, trusting that the situation will be cared for as God sees fit. Prayer can change the one who prays and also the one for whom the prayer is offered if only human need is recognised and divine solicitude is acknowledged.
Today we see the people of God offering the hospitality rather than receiving it, first Abraham and then Martha. What lessons of discipleship can be learned from these readings? First and foremost we see how important openness is, for in each case those to whom the hospitality was offered were divine visitors in human form. We can never be sure under what guise God will come to us. It could be the person on the street who asks for directions, or the one who comes to our place of work to engage the service that we provide. It may be the friend who comes to dinner or the co-worker who acts in a way we did not expect. God comes into our lives in unexpected ways and we must have an open attitude of hospitality if we are to receive the blessings that might come with such visits. We know that we cannot lay aside the responsibilities of our lives in order to sit with Mary at the feet of Jesus. However, we cannot allow ourselves to be held captive by these responsibilities, regardless of how legitimate they may be. And so we continue to struggle; to carry the burdens that are ours for the sake of the people that we serve; to serve the people in our care realising that we will probably not be able to accomplish all of our tasks or at least as well as we would like. It is in this way that the reign of God struggles to be born.
The First Reading commands us to love, and gives us the means to do it. The law, or word, is not beyond our reach but is as close to us as our hearts. And the help and compassion of the Lord for the poor and needy can be seen by our service. It is through this that, hearts will revive (Psalm). The Second Reading makes clear that all is possible by Christ and his cross. He holds everything in being from the beginning and, even now, is drawing us together in deeper unity. Finally, the parable of the Good Samaritan (Gospel) gives us a concrete example of what this service, this command to love, this deeper unity without bias or prejudice, looks like. This week’s Readings give us renewed confidence, trust, and hope in the Good Samaritan who comes close to us in our need, that we might go out so that God’s desires for all people might be seen by our loving response.
We are called and sent to bring the deep peace of the kingdom of God into the world. The prophet Isaiah (First Reading) proclaims a joyful time of peace that flows like a river from the healing, comforting love of God, which is compared to the intimate, tender bond between a mother and a baby. The same spirit of contented happiness is reflected in today’s Psalm of jubilation, where the whole earth cries out with joy to the Lord. The members of the Early Church community in Galatia are encouraged to be at peace with one another through Christ, who makes us a new creation in him. Christ is the source of all peace and unity in the world (Second Reading). In the Gospel, Jesus sends seventy-two of his followers ahead of him. He is confident that they will have all they need for their mission through all they have learnt from following his way. He instructs them to bring his peace and healing into the communities that they visit. In a world that cries out more than ever for the peace of Christ, this is our calling today. Jesus stands among us and sends us before him, to declare his peace and to heal and encourage people in the knowledge that the Kingdom of God is very near.