Today's readings: Isaiah 66, 10-14; Galatians 6, 14-18; Luke 10, 1-12.17-20.

Jesus's instructions to 72 disciples to travel light and to greet no one on the way are placed by St Luke in the context of Jesus's journey to Jerusalem. One important rule when interpreting Scripture is that it needs to be read as a whole, not in fragments. Everything in Scripture happens within the dialectic of the so-called 'already but not yet'.

In Luke's Gospel reading today the emphasis is on hospitality and rejection, which from the beginning to the end of time remain both open possibilities. While in the first reading, Isaiah already has words of exaltation, suggesting a definitive and meaningful experience of Israel after the exile in the 5th and 6th centuries before Christ, when Jerusalem was being rebuilt.

In the second reading from Galatians, St Paul recalls the heart of Christianity, which is the cross, and the heart of what it means to become a Christian, which is to become a new creation. The letter to the Galatians was written to deliver believers from misguided and dangerous zealots. Paul warns the Galatians, who were probably boasting of winning more people over to their position, that "the only thing I can boast about is the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ".

This is a central message we need to revisit in our age. When it comes to being saved, Paul says 'circumcision' is not at all important. This applies today to all the circumcision equivalents on which people are tempted to rely. Rituals and ceremonies apart, what counts is becoming a new creation. This is the heart of the matter.

Being born again is something that happens on the inside, in our hearts. It is the need to get connected, and this happens only as we come to Christ in our brokenness, guilt and helplessness, looking beyond who we are to grasp through him who we are called to be. We are all invited on this Sunday to have eyes as clear and hearts as concerned as Paul's to rise above religious bigotry and set right the priorities of Christian living.

Setting priorities right is also implied in Jesus's command to travel light, not to needlessly burden Christian life as the Galatians were doing by imposing circumcision. As Paul writes, the our experience as believers deepens, "it does not matter if a person is circumcised or not".

God never promises future consolations. What He promises is already given; it is there to be unwrapped. That's why Jesus reminds the 72 about the power he gave them "to tread underfoot serpents and scorpions and the whole strength of the enemy".

It is evident that Luke's account of the 72 sent out to all the towns and places did not happen in Jesus's lifetime. Luke is referring to the experience of the early Church struggling to keep the right perspective and true essence of its mission.

The Church's proclamation of Christ as true saviour has always been received or rejected, been misunderstood or inspired new beings. Also today, Jesus's words and person provide the right attitude and a sure point of reference.

Evangelisation is not proselytism, mere seeking to convert people. The Gospel's power is in God's Word, not in our strategies, though our strategies should be there too. Speaking recently of a much needed and wider project for a new evangelisation, Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, president of the Pontifical Council for Culture, said "faith must rediscover its greatness, avoiding the shortcuts of devotionalism and fundamentalism".

Referring to dialogue with those for whom religion is something foreign, to whom God is unknown, he said "without expecting conversions or reversals of existential journeys, we can together lift up the gaze of a humanity that is often bent too much only on the immediate, on superficiality, on insignificance".

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