Filled With Hope, Commissioned to Heal
"Hope does not disappoint," the apostle Paul writes in the epistle from Romans, "because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Spirit." In the gospel for today Jesus looked at the people and had compassion, because "they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd." Then he summoned his disciples, and gave them authority to cure every disease and every sickness. When disappointments threaten to overwhelm us, we remember that we have been filled with the Spirit. Like the first disciples, we too have been commissioned, called to be agents of healing in a world of pandemic and prejudice, of sicknesses of body, mind, and spirit.
