Posted by The WORD in Other Words by Fr Victor Yparraguirre SVD (Taiwan) Monday Week 31 in Ordinary Time, Lk 14:12-14
There is wisdom and practical value in keeping within the safe confines of the familiar and the known. Yet, if one were to enlarge one‘s circle, the boundaries need to be breached.
There is a need to venture, as it were, into the unfamiliar and the unknown. This is true in making new friends, in business management, and also in pastoral ministry work particularly that of evangelization.
Opening up to new possibilities can be very scary. One leaves behind the sense of security given by the familiar and known territory. And yet, this is a call every follower of the Divine Word needs to heed.
Unless we break out of our comfort zones, we will remain repetitious and redundant. The Good News might even die with us. It is in sharing that we can multiply the fruits of the seeds planted in us.
The pioneering missionaries were indeed imbued with this spirit when they shared the gospel to peoples and cultures unfamiliar to them. Let us pray that we may be given the courage to break through the familiar and known, and blaze new trails among the strange and strangers.
