"Make disciples"

John the Baptist cries out to us: "Behold the Lamb". He calls us to commit ourselves to the Gospel, making disciples by spreading his message to those who can hear us.

The Church teaches that the faithful cannot be silenced, that the impulse to spread the Gospel, to proclaim Christ as Messiah, is not an option but, rather, an obligation. The Church is not "catholic", not universal, if the Church is not also missionary.

" 'Having been divinely sent to the nations that she might be 'the universal sacrament of salvation,' the Church, in obedience to the command of her founder and because it is demanded by her own essential universality, strives to preach the Gospel to all men': 'Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and Lo, I am with you always, until the close of the age.' (Matthew 28:19-20) " (Catechism of the Catholic Church 849)

Meeting Christ in the Liturgy offers a reflection for the Second Sunday in Ordinary Time.

(Art: Lippo Memmi, Saint John the Baptist, probably c. 1325, Samuel H. Kress Collection, National Gallery of Art.)

Nota bene: Recess for retreat. Prayers, please. +mcitl