When Jesus touches your life, there comes a question: now what? He may have delivered you from bondages, given direction to your life and given meaning to your life. But He did not touch you only so that you could go home, make yourself comfortable and keep everything to yourself. There is something Jesus expects from you. He has a plan in His heart, and that plan is not meant only for you. It is meant for the world outside.
Look at the people Jesus called. Matthew was sitting at his desk with the coins in front of him. Peter, James and John were busy with their nets. Jesus did not call them because they had nothing else to do. He pulled them out because He had a plan. He called them to Himself and asked them to follow Him. And remember this: they were not called to glamorous lives. The life of an apostle is not glamorous. The life of a disciple is not glamorous. People accused Jesus of being mad, evil and a liar, and still the disciples left everything and followed Him. They did it for the sake of Christ. They did it for the One who had touched their hearts, and they gave their lives for the greater glory of God.
Jesus has given us the same sending: "As You have sent Me into the world, so I have sent them into the world" (John 17:18). So do not stop with what Christ has done in you. Go out for Him.
Does Your Life Reflect Christ?
When Moses came down from the mountain after spending time in prayer, his face shone with the glory of God. He had been in the presence of God, and when he came down, he reflected God (Exodus 34:29-35). That is the question for us. If you have spent time with the Lord, if Jesus has touched you, does your life reflect Christ? I am not talking about standing in front of a mirror and checking whether your face is shining. Look at the people around you. When they encounter you, do they encounter something of God? Is the glory of God written into the way you speak, the way you respond, the way you love and the way you live?
People came to Moses because they knew, "This is a man of God." Something had happened in the presence of God, and it showed. That is what must happen to us. The grace we receive has to go out. The Lord says, "Go out for Me. Go out and give My love to a world that is filled with hatred. Go out and give My love to a world that is broken and shattered. Go out and give My love to a world that has disrespected Me and does not have faith anymore."
The Lord is sending you out. He is sending you out just as He sent His disciples, like lambs amongst wolves. It has not changed. Even today, it is just the same. He sends us into a world that may reject us, but He sends us with a message of love. It is the duty of every Christian to carry that love to people who are broken and shattered. Do not expect to receive applause. The first disciples received persecution and rejection. Jesus had already warned them: "If the world hates you, be aware that it hated Me before it hated you" (John 15:18). If they hated the Master, the servant should not be surprised when the same thing happens. And it is into this world that the Lord sends each one of us.
You Are in This Land with a Purpose
Get this into your heart: you are in this land with a purpose. If Australia is the land in which you were born, or the land you have chosen and made your home, do not think you are here only to enjoy what the country can give you. God has a purpose for this land, and He has a purpose for you in it.
Many migrants have come here carrying a living faith. I remember priests telling me that there was a time when some churches had only ten or fifteen people at Sunday Mass, and now those churches are full because migrant families have arrived. Thank God for that, but it does not end with filling the pews. If you are in this land, you are called to evangelise. You are called to go out and speak about Jesus in a world that has already known Jesus and, in many places, has rejected Him.
I have travelled through parts of Europe and seen magnificent churches standing almost empty. It is sad to see places that were once at the heart of Christianity lose faith. Jesus speaks of an unclean spirit leaving and later returning with others worse than itself (Matthew 12:43-45). When I see societies that once received Christ and now live as though God does not matter, I think of that warning.
Do not let Jesus die out in this land. Maybe you were born here, maybe your children were born here, or maybe you came from another country and chose Australia as your own. Whatever your story, if this is your home, then the spiritual future of this land is also your responsibility.
Do not take the spirituality God gives you and lock it inside your own room. No. Let it go out and touch the people around you. Do not be scared to talk about Jesus just because people do not have faith. Speak about Jesus. Speak about the Lord. That is when you glorify God.
And yes, it is not glamorous. Faith is not considered glamorous in many places now. I remember Fr Varghese telling me about going to collect grass for a Christmas crib and someone asking, "You people still make that stuff?" That is what faith can become in the eyes of a society that has lost its memory: stuff, something insignificant and unnecessary. Do not accept that attitude. Do not let Jesus die out.
You have a very clear mandate given to you by Jesus: speak out for Him. Do not think it is impossible because a majority may reject Him. Do not think it is impossible. It is not impossible. Eleven disciples went out into a hostile world and the Gospel spread to the different corners of the earth. Do not think you are too small or too little and cannot do much. The Lord will give you strength if you ask.
Ask for the Holy Spirit
More than anything else, ask for the Holy Spirit. That is what the disciples had. If they had anything, they had the power of the Spirit. Nothing else. Nothing else. The only thing they had was the Spirit.
At the Temple, when the man asked Peter and John for money, Peter said, "Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee." Then, in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, he told the man to stand up and walk (Acts 3:6). The man stood up and walked. What did Peter have? The power of the Holy Spirit.
Dear brothers and sisters, that is what we need. Pray. Pray, because your children are growing up here. If your children are to have faith, if your children's children and the generations after them are to have faith, if church bells are still to be rung in this land, it has to start somewhere now.
Do not sit back thinking that some other missionary will come, some other priest will preach, some other family will preserve the faith. If we all think that way, one day it will all die out. One day it will all die out. The Lord is expecting each and every one of us. However young you are, however old you are, speak out for Him. Do not stay back. Speak out for Jesus. The disciples did not do it for their own glory. They did it for the glory of God.
And pray for more vocations in this nation. Pray that more young men will accept the call to priesthood. Pray that religious houses will be filled again. Bring a culture of prayer into the nation and into your families. Get together and pray. Have faith and pray.
It should not always be that people from other nations must come here to proclaim the Gospel. Pray for local vocations, for priests from this land, sons of the soil. I have seen what a culture of prayer for vocations can produce. Fr Varghese comes from a family with three priests. I know another family with four priests among seven children. In my own Vincentian batch, twenty-nine of us were ordained together.
I believe there is a reason for that. In the Syro-Malabar Mass, prayer for priests is woven into the liturgy itself. Generations prayed with faith, and I believe those prayers bore fruit in vocations. If we want vocations tomorrow, we have to pray today. And do not pray only for somebody else's son to become a priest. If the Lord calls from your own family, do not stand in the way.
Protection of Faith
If you call this country your own, then it is your duty to care for your nation. It is also your duty to care for the spiritual dimension of your nation.
One thing that always strikes me in Australia is how seriously protection is taken. There is protection of vegetation, animals and the environment. Even when I travel, I am careful what I bring through quarantine because I do not want something precious to end up in the waste bin. There is protection everywhere.
Then one thing that is very essential must not be forgotten: protection of faith. Protection of faith. And that is left up to you. That is left up to us.
Do not think you are here just by chance. Do not think you are here just to make a little money. If you have chosen this nation as your own, deal with it as your own, love it as your own and pray for it as your own.
Ask the Lord for the grace to proclaim Jesus in this land, to have faith, to profess the faith, to proclaim the faith and to spread the faith. It is not going to be easy. It is not glamorous one bit. There will be a lot of rejection. There will be a lot of pain. But this is my nation. This is my land. If this is the land I call my own, then I will pray for it and I will speak for Christ in it.
Make that prayer with conviction: "Lord, use me for Your glory. I pray for my nation and that faith will never die out in this land that You have filled with so much beauty and so much grace. Lord, I make a vow to You that I will not let the faith die out here. The faith will grow, and we will pray, and our children and our children's children and the generations after them will kneel in the same churches, pray to the same God and carry the same faith."
Pray for a revival led by the Church. Offer our bishops, priests, religious and every person doing active ministry to the Lord, and promise to support them every bit of the way. Pray that this land will thrive with priests, not only priests from outside, but priests from the land, sons of the soil.
And pray for your own children: "Lord, our children belong to You. If You want to use them for Your glory, we will never be a hindrance. If You want to use them, Jesus, take the child. The child is Yours."
Give us the grace, Lord. Let faith never die out.