Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke
At that time,
among the disciples,
the Lord appointed 72 more,
and he sent them two by two ahead of him,
in any city or town
where he himself was going to go.
He said to them:
“The harvest is plentiful,
but the workers are few in number.
Pray therefore to the Lord of the harvest
to send out laborers for his harvest.
Come on! Here I am sending you
like lambs among wolves.
Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals,
and don't greet anyone on the way.
But into every house you enter,
first say:
'Peace to this house.'
If there is a friend of peace there,
your peace will rest upon him;
otherwise, she will come back to you.
Stay in this house,
eating and drinking what is served to you;
for the worker deserves his wages.
Do not go from house to house.
In whatever city you enter
and where you will be welcomed,
eat what is presented to you.
Heal the sick who are there
and tell them:
'The kingdom of God has come near to you.'
– Let us acclaim the Word of God.
Answering the Harvest Call: Transforming Your Missionary Life
From the sending of the seventy-two to our cities: prayer, peace, healing and faithfulness incarnate.
The world has never ceased to be a vast harvest. The Gospel of Luke shows us Jesus sending seventy-two disciples before him, poor in means but rich in peace, fidelity, and boldness. This article is for anyone who wants to live the mission without losing themselves, in the simplicity of actions that bear fruit. You will find a grounded reading of the text, clear guidelines, concrete applications for personal, family, professional, and parish life, resonances with Tradition, a meditation track, a time for prayer, and a practical sheet for taking action today.
- Understanding the sending of the seventy-two as the matrix of all Christian mission.
- Deploy three axes: prayer and poverty of means, peace and hospitality, healing and speech.
- Apply these axes to our spheres of life and meet contemporary challenges.
- Pray, practice, and measure fruit that remains.
Context
Here we read Luke 10:1-9, a pivotal passage where Jesus “appoints seventy-two more” and “sends them out two by two” to each place where he himself is to come. The framework is that of a missionary sending that anticipates the presence of the Lord.
The text opens with a powerful image: “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.” This tension between the immense field to be harvested and the scarcity of workers provokes a first spiritual reaction: “Pray therefore to the Lord of the harvest.” The mission does not begin with action, but with prayer addressed to God, the true subject of the mission and owner of the harvest.
The itinerary becomes clearer: “I am sending you out like lambs among wolves.” The disproportion is accepted. The disciples carry neither purse, nor bag, nor sandals; they greet no one along the way, a sign of urgency and concentration. All the apparatus of security, mastery, and control is stripped away.
The method focuses on sober gestures: entering, saying peace, remaining, eating what is served, healing, announcing.
Peace is not a vague feeling, it is performative: “Peace to this house.” If it meets a “friend of peace,” it rests; if not, it returns, showing that the disciple is not amputated by refusal.
This passage, read in the liturgy with the Alleluia “I have chosen you… that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain” (cf. Jn 15:16), offers a double horizon.
On the one hand, a vocation: it is Christ who chooses and sends.
On the other hand, a promise: the fruit remains. Between the two, an ethic of mission emerges: poverty of means, sobriety of signs, fidelity to the place, welcoming the table, caring for the sick, announcing a closeness: “The kingdom of God has come near to you.”
Finally, the insistence on “staying in this house” and not “moving from house to house” orients the mission towards relational stability and patience.
The challenge is not to conquer territories, but to let the Kingdom express itself through hospitality, shared meals and healing.
The text, often used for Mission Sundays, today inspires the life of parish communities, movements, families and believers at work, wherever Christ still wants to come.
The text at a glance
Preliminary sending, prayer before action, poverty chosen, greeting of peace, hospitality received, healing given, sober announcement of the near Kingdom: seven gestures for a fruitful mission.
Missionary matrix in seven gestures.
Analysis
Guiding idea: the sending of the seventy-two is a pedagogy of fruitfulness through poverty, where God remains the author of the mission and the guarantor of the fruit.
The initiative belongs to Jesus (“he appointed… he sent”). The disciple does not invent his mission; he receives it.
Prayer is the foundation of the movement (“Pray to the Lord of the harvest”). Before any strategy, a dependency is established.
Poverty of means reinforces availability: without purse or bag, the disciples can only count on God and on hospitality.
Peace and the table are sacraments of God's presence in ordinary life.
Healing prepares and makes the announcement credible: the Gospel touches the body, then the word names the Kingdom.
This pedagogy combats two illusions.
First illusion: believing that more resources guarantee more fruit. The text teaches the opposite: scarcity can purify motivation, clarify speech, and sharpen listening.
Second fallacy: confusing urgency with agitation. “Don’t greet anyone on the way” means: don’t get distracted. Urgency doesn’t justify superficiality; it calls for a focus on the essential.
A missionary pragmatic then emerges: choose few places but stay there, bless unconditionally, discern the “friends of peace,” live reciprocity at the table, heal bodies, name the closeness of God.
The structure of the text outlines a three-part movement: pray and leave; enter and remain; heal and announce. Each part has its own resistances and graces.
To pray means accepting the shortage of workers without bitterness; to remain means giving up channel hopping; to heal requires letting oneself be touched by suffering; to proclaim requires the simplicity of the right words.
Finally, the Alleluia of Jn 15:16 frames the purpose: “to go”, “to bear fruit”, “to remain”.
The verb “to dwell” (in fruit and in love) responds to “to remain in this house.” Mission is not measured by the number of steps or events, but by the quality of dwelling that we become for God and for others.
Thus, the promised fruitfulness is neither spectacular nor ephemeral; it takes the form of a peace that finds friends, a table that enlarges the family, a healing that returns to the word, a closeness to God that allows itself to be verified.
Three common mistakes
First seek tools, confuse speed with fertility, speak without healing. To correct: pray, remain, heal, then announce with gentleness.
Antidotes to missionary excesses.
Prayer and poverty of means
The mission begins with a lack: “The laborers are few.” This observation, far from discouraging, becomes the driving force for prayer. Praying to the Lord of the harvest means recognizing that the mission is broader than our agendas. Prayer and lack respond to each other: lack avoids the illusion of sufficiency; prayer keeps hope alive.
The poverty of means explicitly demanded by Jesus is not an asceticism for heroics, but a pedagogy of freedom. Without purse or bag, the disciple is no less effective; he is less encumbered. Freed from securities that turn into anxieties, he becomes more attentive to signs. Missionary sobriety does not idealize precariousness; it indicates that God acts through small numbers, weak means, and inconspicuous places.
This poverty is reflected today in concrete choices.s. In parishes: prefer lean teams, sober formats, regular meetings rather than heavy events. In personal life: limit digital tools to keep prayer first. In pastoral care: agree to close activities that disperse in order to concentrate energy where houses of peace are opened. Poverty becomes an art of addition by subtraction: remove the superfluous so that the essential can breathe.
The “sending” prayer also has content: ask for workers and agree to sometimes be the answer to one's own prayer. We pray for vocations, and we make ourselves available for an hour of visiting, a discreet service, a call. This reciprocity makes prayer effective. It avoids praying from a distance.
Finally, prayer structures time : before going, we receive from God; during, we invoke him; after, we give thanks.
A sobriety that liberates
Fewer tools, more presence. Less control, more trust. Less dispersion, more availability. Missionary poverty does not impoverish, it expands.
The grace of effective simplicity.
Peace, hospitality and loyalty to the place
“Peace to this house.” The mission begins with a blessing that demands nothing in return. Peace is offered, not imposed. It recognizes a “friend of peace”: someone in whom peace finds rest. Peace is verified by its rest. Thus, the mission is not primarily about convincing, but about reaching agreement, and discerning where agreement occurs.
The table is the scene of this peace. “Eat what is presented to you.” Hospitality reverses the position of the master who invites: the disciple, received, becomes the guest who receives the grace of being fed. This choice thwarts an ill-adjusted zeal that would like to bring everything. In the Gospel, the table breaks down walls; it offers a concrete inculturation: eating what one serves is honoring the culture of the other. Mission is measured by one's capacity to inhabit difference without denying it.
“Stay in this house… Don’t go from house to house.” Loyalty to place is a form of charity. It requires patience, humility, and consistency. The Kingdom is rooted in the long-term nature of relationships. In a world that thrives on rapid iteration, stability becomes prophetic. A parish that "stays," a family that "welcomes," a professional who "keeps their word" builds places where peace can rest.
Concretely, this involves choosing “houses” in the broad sense: a stairwell, an association, a neighborhood café, a hospital service. We enter with a word of peace, we stay there with regular visits, we eat there by accepting the offer of the other, we weave a loyalty capable of crossing misunderstandings. The mission is then opposed to spiritual tourism. It likes the slowness that consolidates.
Signs of a House of Peace
Listening without rushing, a table that opens, a word spoken, a shared vulnerability, a simple joy, a time that stretches without getting bored.
Relational clues to discern.
Healing and Announcing: The Kingdom at Hand
“Heal the sick… and tell them: The kingdom of God has come near to you.” The cure precedes the word, without replacing it. Jesus rejects the separation between body and soul. Healing is not only medical; it is any gesture that restores a person to their freedom: listening, accompanying, repairing, advising, forgiving. In the missionary order, the credibility of the proclamation comes from a closeness that has healed.
Healing has a first name: attention. It detects fatigue, isolation, fear. It is expressed in modest gestures: helping with a file, accompanying someone to an appointment, running errands, babysitting a child. It speaks the language of real needs. By caring for the sick “who are there,” the text rejects the escape to idealized elsewheres. The mission begins where one is.
Then comes the word, sober and clear: “The kingdom of God has drawn near.” This is not a totalizing speech, nor a defensive thesis. It is a kerygma: a brief proclamation that situates God’s event in the present. The word interprets healing as a sign of the Kingdom. It names the meaning without tearing it from life. It guards against sterile polemics; it opens a horizon, humble and joyful.
EFinally, the articulation between healing and speech avoids two pitfallss. Humanitarian activism without proclamation, which nourishes but does not open us to God. And the disembodied word that argues but does not console. Integral mission holds these two calls together. It is tested by its fruits: a deeper peace, strengthened bonds, a rediscovered freedom, a faith that risks saying “yes.”
Implications by sphere of life
- Personal Life: Set a daily fifteen-minute prayer appointment before any other action, then choose a concrete “house of peace” to visit each week.
- Family life: Open your table once a month to an isolated neighbor or a new family, eating “what is presented”, without imposing your customs.
- Parish life: Form small teams of two or three, sent to the same place for three months, with a simple rhythm: pray, greet, stay, care, announce.
- Professional life: Identify a stable relational space (team, department, patients). Become an “ally of peace”: punctuality, keeping your word, paying attention to weaknesses, refusing gossip.
- Social and Community Life: Choose a local association and offer a regular presence. Look for the friend of peace: the pivotal person who fosters trust.
- Digital Life: Practice tool restraint. Avoid missionary zapping. Choose one platform, one rhythm, one clear audience, and sober and regular content.
- Community Spiritual Life: Pray weekly for workers, accepting to be sent. Briefly bear witness to the “returns of peace” and the “returns of refusal” without feeling guilty.
Resonances with Tradition
Tradition reads Luke 10:1-9 as a mission charter. Saint Gregory the Great, in his Homilies on the Gospels, emphasizes the disciples' poverty as a participation in the style of Christ. For him, the absence of a purse signifies trust in Providence, which, far from exempting from work, frees from greed. Saint Augustine sees in the "stay in this house" a call to stability of heart: not to flit from one curiosity to another, but to put down roots.
The Didache, a catechetical text from the first centuries, reflects a discipline of welcoming prophets and passing guests, with discernment regarding duration and authenticity. Vatican II (Ad Gentes) connects mission to the life of the entire People of God: every baptized person, prophet, priest, and king, is sent. Pope Francis's Evangelii Gaudium updates the “missionary outing”: a Church “damaged, wounded, and dirty from being out in the streets” is better than a Church sick from closure.
Benedict XVI, in Deus Caritas Est, maintains the unity between diaconate (service), liturgy (worship), and kerygma (proclamation). Luke 10 keeps healing and speech together. The Catechism of the Catholic Church reminds us that peace is the fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5:22); it is given before it is earned. Finally, the link to John 15:16 illuminates the purpose: to abide in love and bear lasting fruit. The mission, if it remains in Christ, transcends the ages because it embraces the logic of giving.
Guided Meditation Track
- Enter into silence and breathe calmly for a minute, naming before God your lacks and your fatigue.
- Read slowly: “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Pray to the Lord of the harvest.”
- Present God with a specific place: a “house” in the broad sense. See the faces. Ask for a “friend of peace.”
- Hear Jesus say: “Go! I send you out like lambs.” Welcome disproportion without fear.
- Offer your securities: your need for control, your tools. Say, “Lord, give me simplicity.”
- Imagine your entrance: you say “Peace to this house.” You welcome what is presented. You stay.
- See a concrete suffering. Ask: “Show me how to heal.” Receive a small light of action.
- Conclude with a short proclamation: “The kingdom of God has come near today.” Give thanks and set a course.
Current challenges
- What if no one welcomes the peace I propose? Sometimes peace “returns” to you. The text protects you from discouragement. Your peace is not lost; it is preserved and strengthens you. Change doors without bitterness, continue to bless.
- How to cope with poverty of means without falling into helplessness? Poverty is educational, not ideological. Identify the minimum viable means that makes you available. Seek allies for peace. Evaluate the fruits, adjust your means, and remain sober.
- In a pluralistic context, is it not indiscreet to announce? Discretion comes from respect and timing. Start by caring and listening. When trust is established, a brief and humble word can be offered. Don't force it; name what God is doing.
- What to do when faced with hostility or cynicism? Jesus warns: “among wolves.” Hostility is not failure. Respond with peace, consistency, and patience. Avoid argument. Look for houses of peace where you can invest your energy.
- How to avoid spiritual activism? Set a simple rule: prayer before action, loyalty to a place, regular evaluation. Refuse to add without deleting. Let poverty deflate the vanity of "doing."
- What if the fruits are invisible? Some fruits are ripening within you: patience, gentleness, faithfulness. Others will appear later. Reread each month: where has peace rested? Who has felt healed? Where has the Kingdom been named?
Prayer
God, Lord of the harvest, we pray to you. You have chosen, in your beloved Son, poor and available disciples. You have put on their lips a word of peace and in their hands gestures of healing. On this day, send us again.
Lord Jesus, you who go before us, you send us two by two to the towns and houses where you want to come. Give us the gentleness of lambs among wolves, the simplicity of those who carry neither purse nor bag, the urgency of those who do not lose their way. Put in us the peace that proposes itself without imposing itself.
Holy Spirit, make our homes houses of peace. Teach us to enter with respect, to greet with kindness, to remain without impatience. Make our tables places of alliance where the stranger becomes a brother, where we eat what is presented to us as a gift, where gratitude expands the heart.
God of all consolation, lay your hand on the sick wherever you send us. Inspire our gestures of care, may our words be sober and true. When we say, “The kingdom of God has come near to you,” may this word be light to hearts and balm to wounds.
Father, in your Son we have received the mission to go, to bear fruit, and that this fruit may remain. Keep us faithful to the prayer that precedes, to the fidelity that remains, to the charity that heals, to the truth that proclaims. Give workers to your harvest, and make us joyful, discreet, and constant servants.
We ask this through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, now and forever. Amen.
Conclusion
The text of Luke 10:1-9 gives you a simple and robust plan of action. Start by praying, name a concrete “house,” decide to stay there, learn the language of peace, heal real suffering, and name God’s closeness with a brief word. Refuse dispersion: few places, simple gestures, faithful appointments.
This week, choose a specific location and set a time to send with a friend. The following week, enter, greet, listen, and stay. At the third appointment, care with humble service. At the fourth, offer a gentle word: “God is not far away.” Write down your observations: Where has peace rested? Who is peace's friend? What care has opened a path?
The Alleluia of John 15:16 remains your compass: you are chosen to go, to bear fruit, and for this fruit to remain. The Lord of the harvest does not abandon his field. He goes before you, accompanies you, and awaits you in the heart of the prepared encounters.
Practical
- Plan fifteen minutes of sending prayer before any action, naming a place and a face to visit this week.
- Identify a specific “house of peace” and commit to returning there four times in a row, without changing your address.
- Learn a simple, consistent peace greeting, then observe who it “rests” on and who it “returns” to.
- Accept “what is presented” in an invitation, receiving hospitality as a grace and a pedagogy.
- Identify a specific suffering and offer a discreet gesture of care that restores concrete freedom in the other.
- Formulate a one-sentence kerygma: “The kingdom of God has come near to you,” at the right time, without pressure.
- Evaluate each month: fruits of peace, fidelity to the place, adjustments of means, new workers raised up by prayer.
References
- The Holy Bible, Gospel according to Saint Luke, 10, 1-9; and Gospel according to Saint John, 15, 16.
- Saint Gregory the Great, Homilies on the Gospels, on the mission of the disciples.
- Saint Augustine, Sermons on the Gospel, commentaries on the missionary sending.
- Didache, teaching of the Apostles, chapters on hospitality and discernment.
- Second Vatican Council, Ad Gentes, on the missionary activity of the Church.
- Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium, on missionary conversion.
- Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est, on the unity of service, worship and proclamation.
- Catechism of the Catholic Church, articles on peace, mission and witness.
