{"id":8917,"date":"2023-06-22T12:00:18","date_gmt":"2023-06-22T11:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/combonimission.wpenginepowered.com\/?p=8917"},"modified":"2023-06-16T15:20:01","modified_gmt":"2023-06-16T14:20:01","slug":"bible-mission-the-fruits-of-mission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/combonimissionaries.co.uk\/index.php\/2023\/06\/22\/bible-mission-the-fruits-of-mission\/","title":{"rendered":"Bible & Mission. The Fruits of Mission"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Seventy-two returned with joy… \u2018Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you; but rejoice that your names are written in heaven\u2019.\u201d (Luke 10: 17\u201320)<\/em><\/p>\n

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The Disciple comes back to the One who sent him. He was sent like a lamb among wolves: poor, weak, in need of acceptance but exposed to rejection. It is the labour of sowing. Now, it is the harvest feast: the valleys are dressed in wheat, \u201ceverything sings and cries for joy\u201d (Psalm 65: 14).<\/p>\n

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The colour of our coming back from the field is joy, the Lord\u2019s final gift to His co-workers. Jesus Himself dances in spirit and proclaims blessed those who see His exultation. The coming back of the Seventy-two is the prelude of the final result, when the Gospel will be announced to every creature (Mark 13: 10) and the whole creation will be rescued from evil (Romans 8: 19\u201323).<\/p>\n

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We harvest what we have sown: coming back, we gather the mission fruits. The first fruit is the victory over Satan: the announcement of the Father\u2019s love overcomes Satan\u2019s lie that is at the origin of all our evils. Our present history is freed from Satan\u2019s influence. Michael\u2019s victory against the dragon (Revelation 12: 7\u201312) happens in the Gospel witness: the one who keeps us in the fear of death is defeated (Hebrews 2: 14ff).<\/p>\n

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The second fruit is bringing back humanity to its dignity: human beings are again the masters of creation, in a life free from fear and egoism. There is also a third, even greater, fruit. The mission is not only victory over evil and returns to the lost garden, but also the missionary being enrolled in the book of God\u2019s children. Whoever goes towards the brethren becomes the Father\u2019s true son.<\/p>\n

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The Mission\u2019s gift in its fullness is: he becomes like the Son who has the very same Father\u2019s love towards the brethren. This is why Mission belongs to everybody: every child\u2019s vocation is his mission towards the brethren that makes him\/her equal to the Father. \u201cThe Seventy-two returned with joy\u201d.<\/p>\n

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The coming back of the Seventy-two symbolically anticipates the return from the mission to all peoples. The joy which is the fruit of requited love is God\u2019s authentic signature because He is perfectly loving and loved. where there is no joy, there is no God. It is a joy that \u201cnobody can snatch away\u201d: it wells up from a love that is stronger than death.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe spirits are subject to you\u201d. Formerly, we were the slaves of evil; now, we rule over it. Satan is defeated by love\u2019s witness: the beauty of those who are poor, helpful and humble unveils the ugliness of egoism, the poisonous fruit of the fear of death. The Gospel witness is the true exorcism that unseats Satan from his power over human beings. But, beware! If we are his slaves, he leaves us alone; if we are the ones to keep him as a slave, he will rebel.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI saw Satan falling from heaven\u201d: Satan was in heaven: he was having God\u2019s place, showing Him as a jealous boss, the antagonist of human beings, of their freedom and joy. Evangelization, by means of the account of Jesus\u2019 story, frees both God and human beings who are God\u2019s image and likeness, from Satan\u2019s presence. Now that Satan is submitted to us, he starts tempting us: he fights against us to submit us to him.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI have given you the power to tread upon serpents and scorpions\u201d: The ancient serpent has no longer any power over us with its poison of lies that took us away from God. Let us tread on the scorpion that has its poison in the tail: it is the image of death that comes in the end and infects our whole life with fear.<\/p>\n

We know that the Father is our beginning and our end: we come from Him and we go back to Him. We can live a happy life, answering love with love. \u201cBut rejoice that your names are written in heaven\u201d: The name is the person, heaven is God: the reason why we rejoice is that we are in God, like the Son in the Father. In fact, by witnessing God\u2019s love for the brethren, we have become like Jesus. it is in the mission to the brethren that we fully fulfill our vocation and our identity as children of God. (Silvano Fausti – Illustration:<\/em> Luis Henrique Alves Pinto)<\/em><\/p>\n

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The Seventy-two returned with joy… \u2018Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you; but rejoice that your names are written in heaven\u2019.\u201d (Luke 10: 17\u201320)   The Disciple comes back to the One who sent him. He was sent like a lamb among wolves: poor, weak, in need of acceptance […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/combonimissionaries.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/combonimissionaries.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/combonimissionaries.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/combonimissionaries.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/combonimissionaries.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/combonimissionaries.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8917\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/combonimissionaries.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/combonimissionaries.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/combonimissionaries.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}