Hi, I'm Matthew Kelly and welcome to feed your soul. Whatever you praise will multiply. It's one of the lessons I've learned as a father. It's one of the lessons I've learned in life. Is that we should never miss an opportunity to praise a holy moment. We should never miss an opportunity to praise good behavior. We should never miss an opportunity to praise initiative, innovation, people going out of their way to be the difference that makes the difference in other people's lives. And so that's the message I want us to cling to today. Whatever you praise will multiply. And I think it leads us to ask ourselves, okay, what are we praising? And usually we praise what we value. And so that leads us to say, what do we value? What are our priorities? What matters most?

In today's gospel, Jesus sends the 12 out. And before he does, he gathers them and it says, then he said to his disciples, the harvest is great, but the laborers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest to send more laborers into the fields. I grew up in Australia. I have seven brothers, and one of the things my dad used to say over and over again is many hands make light work. Many times we're growing up a couple of us were doing something that really everyone should have been involved in. It would have taken ten minutes for everyone to get involved and get it done, but because there's only a couple of us doing it takes a couple of hours. Many hands make light work. The message of this Sunday's gospel is that the harvest is great. That people do need God. People do need religion. People do need spirituality. People do need these things in their lives. And they can not thrive without them. And so there is this enormous harvest. But the laborers are a few. Who's going to go out and tell the world about this? And very often, we use this othering technique where we say, oh, that's for those other people. And other people should do that. That's not for me. I don't know how to do that. That's not my gift. That's not my skill.

There's a couple of things that I think are really important in this Sunday's gospel reading. First is Jesus gathers the 12. He gathers the 12. He gathers them specifically. And the 12 are named. And sometimes when we read the scriptures, and we see these lists of names or we see these things that seem maybe extraneous or too much, we got to ask ourselves, okay, why is that there? Why is this list of names there? And the reason is, is because the writers, being inspired, are making sure that these events are placed in history. For 2000 years, the enemies of Christianity have tried to pretend that Christianity is a figment of our imagination. Okay, but the gospel is continually placed in history. Jesus was a specific person. He lived at a specific time in a specific place. We know that not only because of Christian writings, we know that because of secular historians. We know that because the Jewish historians. They place this person, this man, this man God, at this particular place in time, in history, and the gospels record that. The gospels record not that oh, there was these 12 people, and we don't know who they are, and we don't know what their names were. And then we don't know what they did. No, we know who they are. We know what their names were. We know what they did. We know their backstory to some extent. And so the writers of the gospels are constantly trying to and not trying to. They are succeeding at placing these events in real-time in history so that at some time in the future, like today, people can't say, "Well, that stuff, that's just a figment of Christian imagination. That never really happened. The Christians just sort of made that stuff up." No, it happened. At a specific place, at a specific time, and specific people were involved. That's important. Sometimes we read descriptions and things like that. Oh, it just skips through that. That's a list of names. Let's ask, why is the list of names there? Because if it's there, it's there for a reason. And then, having gathered the 12, Jesus sends him out. And he basically sends him out to do two things, preach and heal. A question that I think we need to challenge ourselves with today is, how are we being called to preach and heal? And of course, again, this othering technique that we have is to say, "Oh, that's for other people. I don't have a gift of preaching. That's for other people. Or, oh, healing. I'm not a healer. That's for other people." But the reality is, whatever you praise will multiply. Okay. And whatever it is we want to multiply in this world, we need to start locating it. We need to start pointing it out. We need to start praising it because that is how it will multiply. And just by praising good things, just by recognizing a holy moment and saying to someone, "Wow, that was a holy moment." Just by doing that, we are doing what? We are preaching. And we are healing. Because encouragement, something just as simple as encouragement can be tremendously healing to people. I see my own children. I see other children. And when they're praised, when they're encouraged, it's amazing how their disposition changes. Their body language changes. It's like they stand up a little bit taller. They smile a little bit brighter. They look you in the eye. There's a sparkling eye. And all it was was someone saying, "Hey, good job. Good job, Johnny. Good job, Susie, thanks for helping your friend, Mary." Whatever we praise will multiply in this world, in our lives, in our families, in our marriages, in our relationships, in our workplace. What are you praising? What are you praising? And what is it that you want to multiply in this world, in your life? And let's start to align what we're praising with what we want to multiply in our lives and in the world.