The Repair of the Broken World

Jesus summoned his disciples, made them share in his authority, and told them to go out to clean and repair the world (Matthew 10:1-7).

As the followers of our Lord, we have been given power over evil and sickness. We often don’t accept our own authoritative power over misery, sickness, and evil. Matthew says explicitly that Jesus summoned his followers by name and gave them authority over unclean spirits with power to drive them out, and to cure all kinds of diseases. This passage is not about working miracles and wonders, as normally people understand. It is rather about our own inner authority to deal with falsity and evil, and about offering our healing touch in compassion to our brothers and sisters.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. We could do all kinds of things, but we don’t. It isn’t unwillingness on our part. What hinders us most often is the poor idea we have of our own influence, of our own weight and authority. Yet, we are charged with God’s Spirit, and with the mission Jesus left us to bring God’s reign to life among us.

We are put in this world as participants and executors in God’s creative and salvific project. We have to execute this project in the place and situation where we are engaged as parents, educators, religious, priests, children, students, youngsters, or retired senior citizens. We should also take into account that there is always a great demand for volunteers chasing the evil from our world. (There are so many associations in our parishes and societies: Red Cross, Legion of Mary, Jesus Youth, Third Orders, MSF, Catholic Relief Services, etc.)

We should start at home. The temptation is always to blame the evil in the world on others, scapegoating them. We as Jesus' disciples become his partners in the universal restoration work he himself had come to do. Our honeymoon is over, the work needs to begin. Let us not forget that we are "wounded healers"—we are healers but at the same time wounded and broken like others. The repair of our own inner broken worlds has to go on simultaneously with our social interventions.