A couple of months ago, a man from our parish came up to me and said, "Fr. Ray, please say an extra prayer for me. I’m giving a talk this afternoon to some high school teenagers—my nephew being one of them. This year, his class has been having "motivational speakers" come in to talk about how they’ve overcome the obstacles and difficulties they’ve faced in their lives. My nephew asked me to come in today and share my story."

I said to him, "That’s a public school, you know. Do you plan on telling them EVERYTHING?"

I asked that question because I know this man’s story. His stepson was murdered; his stepdaughter died of cancer a week after she graduated from high school; and his wife was killed in a car accident. As he would tell you, prior to these tragedies he had lived his life like a pagan; he wasn’t even baptized. But in the midst of the terrible darkness caused by these tragic events, he opened his heart to God and embraced the Catholic faith. So I knew that if he was going to tell them everything, then God, the Eucharist, the other sacraments, and the Church would have to be at the very center of his talk—because it was his relationship with the Lord that pulled him through: a relationship that was born and nurtured in the Catholic Church.

So I said to him, "Do you plan on telling them EVERYTHING?"

Without hesitation, he answered, "ABSOLUTELY!"

I said, "Then I’ll definitely pray for you, my friend! And if you get arrested for saying nice things about God, Jesus and the Catholic Church in a public school, I promise to come visit you in prison!"

So he went.

And what happened?

These young people loved it! They thought it was great! In fact, they enjoyed the talk so much that they voted him "the best speaker of the year," and asked him to come back in the fall to tell his story to the whole school!

I share this with you today to make this point:

There is a deep hunger in this world for God and his truth. And there’s a desire (especially on the part of young people) to meet authentic, sincere, loving witnesses to Jesus Christ. In today’s Gospel text from Luke 10, we were told that Jesus sent out 72 disciples into the towns he was planning to visit, to prepare the people in those places for his arrival. The disciples were to do this by proclaiming the Gospel, and by healing the sick. Which—when you stop and think about it—is exactly what our parishioner did for those high school students! He did what the 72 were commissioned to do 2,000 years ago: he healed sick hearts by his words of witness, and he helped prepare some of those teens to receive Jesus Christ more fully into their lives! No doubt many of those young people came away from that talk with a much more positive perspective on God, the Catholic Church, and the sacraments. That was an inner healing! –which means they’ll be much more open to the Lord and his grace in the future.

Did some hearts remain closed that day? Probably. Jesus predicted that some people would reject the witness of the 72, and our witness of faith will also meet with rejection (at least from time to time). But the 72 were not to give up or compromise the Gospel message when they encountered opposition, and neither are we—in spite of the many pressures we may feel to "water down" the truth.

Thankfully, our parishioner didn’t compromise the Gospel message in any way when he stood in front of those teens—and lives were changed because of it.

When the 72 came back, they gave Jesus a report of their missionary efforts in his name. We are "the 72" in the year 2001—and, on Judgment Day, we will each be asked to do the very same thing. If what happened in that class a couple of months ago is an accurate indicator, then our parishioner—like the 72—will have a very good report to give Jesus.