Gospel reading: Luke 4:14-22
The Live Christ Share Christ (LCSC) mission, through its Live Full pillar, has the No One in Need (NONe) movement. This is a work of building the Church of the Poor in response to the call to the New Evangelization.
Why is this important? At its most basic, it is important because it is the very mission of Jesus. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free” (v.18).
The poor are the materially and socially poor. They are the downtrodden, the oppressed, the afflicted, the forgotten and the neglected. They are on the fringes of society, deprived of their share of the world’s goods, stripped of their dignity as children of God, at the mercy of human greed, neglect and selfishness.
God poured His Spirit upon Jesus and anointed him, not only bringing salvation to the world, but especially seeking the lost, the least and the last. God created a wonderful world, with enough provision for all. There was no poverty in Eden. Jesus came to restore our relationship with the Father, and to restore what God intended from the very start—that captives would be liberated, that the blind shall see, that the oppressed will go free. Jesus defeated Satan on the cross and overturned darkness and death. Jesus wants the sorry lot of his people to be overturned as well.
Jesus, at the beginning of his public ministry, said to those in the synagogue, “Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.” (v.21). From today, with the work of the No One in Need movement, may this scripture passage, this mission of Jesus, be fulfilled in the lives of many poor people in our midst.
“And all spoke highly of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.” (v.22a). May all continue to speak highly of Jesus, as his disciples help bring him into the lives of the poor, and may they be amazed at the wondrous works that come from our hands, the very hands of Jesus himself.
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