If someone who promotes peace is there, your peace will rest on them; if not, it will return to you.  Stay there, eating and drinking whatever they give you, for the worker deserves his wages. Do not move around from house to house.
 When you enter a town and are welcomed, eat what is offered to you. Heal the sick who are there and tell them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’ But when you enter a town and are not welcomed, go into its streets and say, ‘Even the dust of your town we wipe from our feet as a warning to you. 

Yet be sure of this: The kingdom of God has come near.’ (Luke 10:6-11)
 

Luke 10:1-12, 17-20

Here is our freedom. God never forces us to follow the way that Jesus teaches. Jesus’ way is one of inclusion, compassion, justice, forgiveness, belonging, and love. Love cannot be forced. It has to be given freely. God, who is love, invites us to love and is dependent on our response of freely-given love. God shows us what letting go is. God does not force-feed to make slaves of us. God desires our love and is always faithful in love, always reaching out and awaiting our genuine response. God sees with different eyes than ours—God sees who we were created to be—the authentic inner self, where God is present.

Fr. Greg Boyle SJ, who runs Homeboy Industries, a centre for the homeless in Los Angeles, says that the centre runs on only two principles: firstly, everyone is unshakably good (no exceptions) and secondly, we belong to each other (no exceptions). He believes that “all our vexing and complex social dilemmas would disappear if we embraced those two notions.” 

Some receive, some reject. Those who accept are promised the kingdom of God. Those who reject are released so completely that even their ‘dust’ is brushed off the shoes of those who reach out. They are given complete freedom to receive or not.

As one invited, will I tentatively, or perhaps wholeheartedly, seek to make friends, or deepen my friendship with God? Or as one who is willing to share what I know in my heart about Jesus, will I offer what I have and understand to those who desire to receive the peace? Will I freely let go of those who choose not to?

Ultimately, our mission is not so much about what we might do, but rather about what God does in us. One of the guidelines of Ignatius is to let the Creator deal with the creature. Let me offer with gentleness and allow God to do the work. 

Am I willing to see what God sees in each person created in love, for love?

How can I best share my faith with others while still respecting their freedom to encounter God on their own?

Do I value God’s gentle approach to the deepening of my love relationship with God?

Reflections by Kath Knowles

Gentle God of love,
Thank you for the constant desire for my love and the gentle ongoing invitation to come to know you more deeply. Help me to receive your love through the gift of those who live a life of love, through nature, and through my experience of you in the silence and stillness where I seek you. Guide me in my life so that I may share my knowledge of you with others.
Amen.
 

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