Press Release

Romans 10:6-17

Phrases that spoke to me today:
the word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart
how can they hear without someone to preach
how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news

Applying the Word to My Life:
By the time Anthony Claret was a young man in Barcelona, he was becoming very good at textiles. He had grown up around the family looms, but in the city he studied manufacturing seriously, learned new techniques, and threw himself into the work so completely that people began talking about helping him establish his own factory. He later admitted that it had become an obsession. Even when he went to Mass, his mind wandered back to machines, designs, and production. The boy who had once thought about becoming a priest was gradually disappearing underneath the life he was building.

Then Barcelona started shaking him awake.

A friend Anthony trusted cheated him and stole from him. A woman tried to pull him into a relationship he wanted no part of. Then one day, exhausted from working so hard that he had lost his appetite, Anthony went down to the sea because wading in the water gave him some relief. A wave suddenly caught him and dragged him away from shore.

There was one significant problem: Anthony couldn't swim.

He later remembered finding himself strangely calm in the water. He called on Mary, and somehow he ended up back on shore without even swallowing water. Only afterward did the fear hit him. The life he had been working so hard to build suddenly looked a little less permanent.

Around that same time, one line of Scripture began working on him: what good is it to gain the whole world and lose yourself?

Anthony had talent. He had opportunity. He could have built a good life in the textile business. The problem wasn't that any of those things were bad. The problem was that God had once called him to something else, and Anthony had become so absorbed in building his own future that he had almost stopped listening.

He finally walked away from the factory life and toward the priesthood. Years later, after more unexpected turns, he discovered that God wasn't calling him to a quiet corner of the Church. Anthony began walking through Catalonia preaching from town to town with little more than a Bible, a change of clothes, and a map. When he realized his voice could only reach the people standing in front of him, he started writing and printing catechisms, books, and pamphlets so the Gospel could travel where he could not.

That's the urgency behind Paul's questions today: how can people believe if they have never heard? How can they hear unless someone speaks? And how can someone speak unless they are sent?

Someone once carried the Gospel close enough for us to hear it. Now someone else may be waiting for us to do the same.

Most of us will never preach our way across a country or publish millions of pages. But every one of us has people within hearing distance. They are in our families, workplaces, schools, friendships, and ordinary conversations. Some may hear Christ because of something we say. Others may first become curious because of the way we live.

Anthony nearly spent his life making cloth. Instead, he finally listened to the call that had been buried underneath all that noise, and God used his voice to reach people he would never have imagined.

The question for us isn't whether we can reach everyone. It's whether we're willing to carry Christ to the people already within our reach.

My Response for Today:
Today I'll bring Christ within hearing distance of one person God has placed near me.

ABOUT ST. ANTHONY MARY CLARET
Name: St. Anthony Mary Claret (Antoni Maria Claret i Clarà)
Lived: December 23, 1807, Sallent, Spain – October 24, 1870, Fontfroide Abbey, France
Feast Day: October 24
Patron of: Weavers; the Catholic press
Title: Archbishop of Santiago de Cuba; founder of the Claretians; canonized May 7, 1950
Read more: Franciscan Media · Wikipedia: Anthony Mary Claret