December 6, 2025, Saturday of the First Week of Advent
Lectionary #180, Matthew 9:35 to 10: 1,5a, 6-8

Scripture
Jesus went around to all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the Gospel of the Kingdom, and curing every disease and illness. At 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 and gave them authority over unclean spirits to drive them out and to cure every disease and every illness. Jesus sent out these Twelve after instructing them thus, “Go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. As you 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.”

Reflection
Reading the gospels, one sometimes gets the feeling that the Lord is in a hurry. He appears to have drawn up a plan of action, an agenda, and he is racing against time to fulfill it. Apparently, he is reaching out to as many people as possible. God was eager to tell people about God. But it was not to be mere advertising. All of these meetings with people would be high-quality, face-to-face encounters. “Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news.”

He would send disciples, but he insisted on seeing as many people as possible. When he could, he saw them where they lived. He would talk to them, heal them, eat with them, and “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless.” At times, he saw all the work he had to do, he witnessed all the goodwill he had to harness, and he detected a tone of impatience with the task: “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.”

Upon reflection, we stand amazed to learn how intensely and sincerely God wants people to know him. At the end of the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus gave one last command to the disciples gathered around him: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations…” Once again, we stand before a mystery that can only be the mystery of God’s affection for people. Why make himself known to us? Why insist that we love him? Why all those divine declarations of fidelity and affection?
And the mystery deepens. God doesn’t want a mere passing acquaintance with people. He doesn’t want a casual relationship. The purpose is not to increase the number of individuals or nations who know God so that He can rack up numbers and percentages. God’s reason for preaching is that he wants a relationship to be born and to thrive between Himself and individuals. He wants to be part of the lives of individuals, part of their joys and pain, part of their entire human experience.
The Word became flesh not as an achievement to be recorded by the Godhead, but as a desire to become one with other humans, to know what it means to have blood coursing in the veins of God, and to have people see what God looks like when He smiles as well as when He weeps.

When he left the human world, he arranged for others to make him known. “Then Jesus summoned his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to cure every disease….” Henceforth, people who are aware of God will understand that God heals, liberates, forgives, abides, is loyal, and loves. The people who would best promote his name would be those who loved him the most.

At La Salette, Mary chose a tiny, remote village high up in the Alps in which to appear. She probably meant to convey the notion that small villages and little people also dwell in the heart of God. In human assessment, very few villages were smaller than the village of La Salette, and few people were smaller than Maximin and Mélanie.

And we know how she won their hearts and their lifelong loyalty. We know how everything else they saw and heard in life was compared to that Saturday afternoon on the mountain, and everything and everyone fell short. At the end of her apparition, she said, “Well, my children, you will make it known to all my people. And she stressed and insisted, “Well, my children,” she said a second time, “you will make it known to all my people.”

Once again, God wanted us all to know and to realize that God was still present among people. That these people were God's people'. He sent two children as messengers, a humanly absurd idea and a more ludicrous choice of witnesses. Now the world knows how well they fulfilled their mission. La Salette is an act of love and an act of presence to humankind. Through La Salette, God says to all of us,I am still here and I care as much as ever about you.’ After twenty centuries, Christ is still in a hurry.

La Salette Invocation
Our Lady of La Salette, reconciler of sinners,
pray without ceasing for us who have recourse to you