Tuesday November 12, 2024

God has placed people around you who need what you can give.

Good News Reflection for:

Tuesday of the 32nd Week of Ordinary Time
Memorial of Saint Josaphat, Bishop and Martyr
November 12, 2024

Today’s Prayer:

Thank You, Lord Jesus, because you called me to work testifying to Your Word. This is my peace, my joy and my rest. Praised be You Lord! Amen.

UNITE IN COMMUNITY PRAYER!
Powerful Catholic prayers with the daily reflection are available on our YouTube channel.

Today’s Readings:

Titus 2:1-8, 11-14
Ps 37:3-4,18,23,27,29
Luke 17:7-10
bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/111224.cfm
USCCB Podcast of the Readings:
bible.usccb.org/podcasts/audio/daily-mass-reading-podcast-november-12-2024

Are you a mentor?

In today’s first reading, Saint Paul describes holiness as the sharing of our strengths and giftedness with others. Those with more experience should serve as examples of holiness. It’s the ministry of evangelizing by mentoring.

Whom do you mentor? Parents mentor their children, teachers mentor their students, but who else could learn from us? Who could learn from your accumulated knowledge and experiences and wisdom? Who is newer at being a Christian and could benefit from the insights that you gained during your own struggles?

Mentoring involves noticing which people God has placed in our path on the journey to heaven, then choosing to walk beside them. Sometimes they’re crippled and need us to push their wheelchairs down the road until they can walk. Sometimes they’re limping along and need us for a crutch until their legs get stronger. Sometimes they just need us to hold their hand as they make their way through a scary or confusing forest.

You have much that the Holy Spirit wants to offer them through your help, taken from your own healing, growth and learning processes. God has placed people around you who need what you can give. If you don’t mentor them, they suffer from the absence of what you could provide. The consequences of this could be dreadfully long-lasting. We’ll have to explain to Jesus why we refused to help when he comes to take us home to heaven.

As members of the family of God, we all have community responsibilities. There are countless opportunities within the parish. You could become a sponsor for a candidate in RCIA or a catechist for teenagers who haven’t yet taken personal ownership of their faith. Married couples can join a Marriage Preparation team and stay in contact with the engaged couples even after their wedding days. Divorced people and widows who’ve followed Christ into healing can mentor those who are currently experiencing loss.

If you belong to a faith sharing or prayer group, you can invite others to join and then continue the relationship outside the meetings. Retired business people can make their expertise available to parishioners who are starting new businesses, mentoring them in how to make Jesus their CEO. And there are people in the neighborhood, workplace, sports leagues, and so on, who could benefit from your unique perspective of living the faith there, too.

Jesus warns us in today’s Gospel reading that if we do nothing more than our duty — fulfilling our minimum Christian obligations so that we get to heaven — we are “useless servants.” Wow. Let’s become truly useful to our Lord! Let’s not just go to Mass to fulfill our Sunday obligation; let’s uplift the person who sits next to us. Let’s read the bulletin and find out how we could bless our parishes with our faith and talents and knowledge and experiences.

For more on the topic of this subject, see our WordByte “3 Stages of Finding Your Calling” @ wordbytes.org/master-needs-you/discernment-3-stages/.

And see the series of articles and self-assessment worksheets provided by Good News Ministries, “The Master Needs You” @ https://wordbytes.org/evangelization-ministry/of-the-laity/#master.

© by Terry A. Modica, Good News Ministries

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