We had a heavy rain all night and the sidewalks are puddly. In returning from my office my squeaky shoes announced that mud and wet were going to follow me up the stairs and into my room, not a good idea. So I removed the shoes at the door and quietly padded roomward.

Today’s Gospel is a picture of Jesus’ sending His best friends to do the same kind of things Jesus has been doing. There is quite an emphasis on their healing the diseases of all kinds. He sends them out penniless and rather unaccompanied by material necessities. If they get their sandles wet with experiences of rejection, well shake it off, take it off.

Leaving, usually attracts our attention about what is coming, where are we going and what will I be like. The unknown can be frightening and full of worries. Jesus sends His apostles with not much to support them if their facing the adventures of proclaiming the Good News. What does accompany them is their past-times with Him and their being healed from their being dominated by self-negativities and doubts.

We, as with them, go toward, but from where they’ve been and whom they/l have been. We walk into the mysteries of our futures from where we have been in and with our pasts.  There! The Apostles are to take their pasts with them, including all they have received from their times with Jesus. They can shake the dust from the sandles when their message is not welcomed. They cannot shake off the influences of Jesus and His ways. Nothing extra will be needed except their awareness of whom He has formed them to be.

We go from a then, a past, into a now influenced by everything and everyone who formed that, then. Friendships, conversations, liturgies and prayer all move us form into the for and we cannot shake off those pasts as if they never happened. The Apostles had to remember and had to be comforted so as to be persons of healing and presence.

I am going from writing this, here in my room, over to class and a bit of teaching. I will try to recall my time preparing to write and my time of being with you and Him. Go! My going to a new then will be influenced by all that has been with me during these nows.