Readings:
Proverbs 30:5-9
Luke 9:1-6
Reflection:
Travel light, Jesus said. That’s today’s gospel. When happiness or fulfilment is your main goal in life, it will forever elude you. Happiness is a by-product of caring for others; self-fulfilment is the by-product of selflessness. All you ever own is what you give away and those to whom you give it.
All you need to change the world, Jesus tells his disciples in today‘s gospel, is a compassionate heart, -being there for others. All you need to take with you is your desire to heal and help.
“All you need is love” the Beatles sang when some of us were teenagers. “He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother” we sang in less politically correct days. Wholeness comes from healing and helping. It’s not rocket science.
We don’t need libraries of self-help books -the Power of One; Live your Dream. We don’t need thousands of Likes on carefully self-curated images in Facebook, that last no longer and are no more genuine than emojis. No, AA recommended just doing one anonymous good deed for someone each day, without them knowing.
Travel light! Love your neighbour! So why do we so often hold onto so much baggage. Whether it’s resentments, bitterness or hurts. Whether it’s the disappointments, unfulfilled dreams, all the “what might have been’s”, the “what should have been”. All the” if only’s” or the “But when’s”. All the things we can’t forget and the things we wish we could.
I once read that the crusaders in mediaeval times didn’t lose the crusades because they were too weak. They lost because the penny never dropped, that they didn’t have to wear huge and heavy suits of armour to fight in the Middle East. They died because they were exhausted from carrying so much useless baggage.
Let it go, let it be, and travel light.
Tom Mcdonough CP is the parish priest and community leader at St. Paul of the Cross, Glen Osmond.