"The Kingdom of Heaven is at Hand" (Matthew 10:8)

In today’s Gospel, Matthew 9: 35-10:1, 5a, 6-8, Matthew recalls his experience of Jesus. He tells us that  “[a]t the sight of the crowds, his heart was moved with pity for them because they were troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.’ Then he summoned his Twelve disciples [Matthew would have been one of those twelve) and [authorized them] to...go make this proclamation: ‘The Kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, drive out demons. Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give.”

Jesus is the same today, yesterday and tomorrow!  To this very day, He is “moved with pity,” seeing millions of people without  proper instructors, without sufficient guidance, without being loved or cared for properly. In fact, in this 21^st century, Jesus sees millions of children, young adults and, in many cases,  women being abused spiritually, physically, emotionally, verbally. Jesus sees children and adults sifting through garbage dumps looking for something to eat. He sees homeless persons begging for help to survive homelessness.   He sees children and young adults used as sexual slaves and slaves in factories and various industrial sites where clothes and other commodities are produced by cheap labor and sold by companies that makes billions of dollars  of profit selling merchandise produced as cheaply as possible off the backs of poorly paid workers. 

On the day of reckoning, the Lord will bind up “the wounds of his people, he will heal the bruises left” by abusers(see today’s first reading, Is 30: 26); and,   yes,  on that day  “the tyrant shall be no more and the arrogant will have gone. All who are alert to do evil will be cut off,”  the prophet Isaiah warns us in Is. 29: 17-24.

“The time is fulfilled,” Jesus says  to us, “and the kingdom of God is close at hand. Repent , and believe the gospel” (Mark 1: 15).

May each one of us have the humility to heed Isaiah and Jesus' messages!  May we beg God's mercy for all of us, those doing good in the world and those perpetuating evil.