We have to become “that person” for others….That is how we change the world - The only way

Today at Holy Mass in the first reading taken from the Book of Exodus, the Egyptians began to persecute the Jewish people and make them their slaves….Interestingly enough, the more they persecuted then, the stronger they got….”Yet the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread”….Why is this a significant point to highlight?……Great powers have “tried” to destroy the Catholic Church…From the Roman Empire…..To the English Monarchy under Henry VIII….To the French Revolution….To Nazi Germany…To the former Communist Soviet Union….And all of them failed!…..We even see others try the same thing today…..The elites who run all of our American Institutions…..The main-stream media….Higher Education…Hollywood….The list goes on and on……They still all try to discredit and destroy the Catholic Church….And here we are - The Catholic Church is still here….When will the world learn?…..The Catholic Church CANNOT be destroyed…..Why is that?….Because Jesus said so…..”And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven”……..What should that objective reality say to us?…..I can only tell you what it says to me….That this is the one Church that God himself founded and because of the fact that it has outlast everyone and everything that tried to destroy it - Maybe what it teaches is TRUE! - “Ya think?”…..To not “second guess” personal biases for whatever reason against the Catholic Church due to the reality I just laid out is missing the much bigger picture……Sadly, facts do not change hearts - Only saints do….So many Catholic “social media warriors” are out there “trying” to change the world…I am one of them…While educating people about the Catholic faith is important….So is defending the Truth important…That is not what will “win the day”…..Only the witness of a holy life will result in the world around you to “second guess” choices made, which have distanced "our people" from God and his Church…..Today the Universal Church commemorates the Feast Day of Kateri Tekekwitha, an American Indian saint from the 18th century….When Kateri was on her death bed, this is what a witness who was a French Jesuit Priest (Fr Pierre Francois-Xavier Charlevoix SJ) documented…..”The wonders of God soon began to work in favor of those who had recourse to her intercession are still at this day a powerful motive to serve in spirit and truth…..Nothing could be more beautiful…….. but with that beauty which inspires the love of virtue. The people were never weary gazing on her and each left with a heart full of the desire to become a saint”……Saints make other saints!….If we want to change the world and make it a better place….We MUST strive to become a holy people…..If we give God permission, God can accomplish this great work within us…This is the ONLY way we impact the world - Is to become a holy people…Let’s make it happen!

“Whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it”

I am not sure if many people have ever witnessed with their own eyes a person who was objectively holy - I have…..For years I worked with Mother Teresa’s sisters and words can not do justice to what I witnessed….I HAVE SEEN what a holy life can do - How it can impact people and society…I am also convinced that such a life is obtainable….And if we give a full throated - YES to God - He will not only honor our consent but multiply it……This is the only way to impact the world in a lasting way…….On one of my trips to Kolkata, India I got to know Sister Mary Michael MC…….St Michael was a Medical Doctor from England who gave up a lucrative career to spend her life serving the poor on the streets of Kolkata…Let me stop right there…..Coming from the materialist New York Metropolitan Area - Who does that!?!…The answer - No one!…If you put your daughter through medical school and she made that choice - What would your response be?……One given night a bunch of volunteers and I were getting on a public bus during rush hour in Kolkata…To say rush hour in a city like Kolkata is MADNESS is an understatement…With me this night was a bunch of people ranging in age (some were old) and we were all trying to get on the bus….I was doing my best to “herd” the crowd on the bus and not succeeding and interiorly I was panicking …..But for some reason the bus did drive away and somehow we all got on it….Just as we all got on the bus and I looked through the windshield as I stood next to the bus driver…I saw my friend Sister Mary Michael…She was standing in the middle of the street in harm's-way preventing the bus from driving away from us…..This highly educated doctor…Someone who “could” have made a fortune….Became “nothing” so others can become something….This is the witness of Jesus Christ - And this is the witness our world needs so desperately…As I write this tears are welling up in my eyes thinking of the sight of Sister Michael standing in the way of that bus for us….A holy life - The witness of self sacrificial love - This is the only way we change the world……Catholics must strive to become a holy people….And then God will use us to make others holy as well.

“Whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it”

Today in the Book of Exodus read to us at Mass we hear no matter what the Egyptians did to the Jewish people…They “multiplied and spread”…..While its important to recognize a historical reality to demonstrate how God’s people CAN NOT be wiped off the face of the earth…Its also important to understand how we as God’s people today can impact the world…And the only lasting way to do that is to allow God to sanctify our life….The great French Catholic novelist Leon Bloy (from La Femme Pauvre) once said…"The only real sadness, the only real failure, the only great tragedy in life, is not to become a saint”…The only reason why people may disagree with this statement made by Leon Bloy is they have never seen with their own two eyes someone who was objectively holy…..This needs to change!….We have to become “that person” for others….That is how we change the world - The only way