Today at Holy Mass in the Gospel of St Mark we are told that Jesus ate with sinners…This to a law abiding Jew was a scandal!….Why would you associate with such a person…Jesus gives the answer…….“Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do. I did not come to call the righteous but sinners.”…How easy it is to look down on others…To think for “this reason” or “that reason” you are somehow better then “them”….While choices and actions do have consequences, both good and bad, God does not stop loving us even when we turn from him - How about us? - Are we like God in this way?……In this passage from St Mark, Jesus was willing to bear the shame brought upon him by the “established people” of his day because of his love for the lost….Are we willing to go after the one lost sheep, leaving the 99 who “get it”….And if we do, what happens when the 99 turn on you because you left them?…..This is what Jesus shows us today….His love bears shame, it endures ridicule, it does not concerns itself with being accepted by the crowd…..Again, how about us?…..Love, in order for it to be real must be sacrificial….God in his infinite wisdom gives us opportunities to love in this manner through out our life…When those opportunities present themselves - Do we recognize them? - Do we embrace them? - Or…..Do we turn from them?
“The Lord sent me to bring glad tidings to the poor and to proclaim liberty to captives”
During the height of the AIDS epidemic, Mother Teresa opened up an AIDS hospice in New York City…At the time, if a person acquired the AIDS virus, that person was a modern day leper…..But Mother Teresa and her sisters did not see it that way….This person was a child of God - A lost soul - Born to be loved and to love in return…..Sadly, the world did not see it that way - Even many Catholics living lives in “the mainstream” probably did not see it that way…These men with AIDS were public sinners! - Keep them away from me!…Maybe some people even thought - “They got what they deserve”!…..This is not how God views such people and because of that, nor should we…..In life people for many different reasons make bad choices…And as we all know, with every choice there are consequences…That being said, God gives us opportunities to “turn things around”, even among those “bad choices”…..This is where Catholics need to come into the picture….Catholics are to be salt and light in this world…We are too walk among the people…And by our example, which is fueled by Sacramental grace and daily prayer, we are to give “the crowd” an example of God’s never failing love - For the “good” and the “bad” alike……….How we are fully equipped to do this? - Because of Sacramental living , which elevate our human nature….Catholics are not to “go off” and live in “the woods” far away from the lost, we are to walk among them…As Jesus shows us today in the Gospel……”While he was at table in his house, many tax collectors and sinners sat with Jesus and his disciples; for there were many who followed him”…….The world today needs to see for itself the Gospel taking the form of “flesh” - What does that mean? - Catholics are meant to radically live the Gospel in the world…This type of witness will impacted even the hardest of hearts and the worst of sins….…One can not self-manufacture this kind of love….…Only Christ can give us this grace if we allow him to and when we are transformed, we are then equipped to give away what we have received…...This is how the lost regain their sight….And this is how we save our soul in the process.
“As he passed by, he saw Levi, son of Alphaeus, sitting at the customs post. Jesus said to him, “Follow me.”
Today at Mass we are told that Jesus broke with Jewish customs to associate with public sinners….He was not concerned with what “the crowd” thought of him - Does our public image drive us to behave in certain ways?…..If we are to live out our Catholic faith, we must be a people set apart in and amongst the world…One match in the darkest of places brings a great amount of light - In fact, the darker the room, the more that one match shines bright!…….Cardinal John Henry Newman (1801-1890) in his poem entitled “Radiating Christ” said it best…..”Dear Jesus, help us to spread Your fragrance everywhere we go. Flood our souls with Your Spirit and Life. Penetrate and possess our whole being so utterly that our lives may only be a radiance of Yours. Shine through us and be so in us that every soul we come in contact with may feel Your presence in our souls. Let them look up, and see no longer us, but only Jesus! Stay with us and then we shall begin to shine as You shine, so to shine as to be a light to others. The light, O Jesus, will be all from You; none of it will be ours. It will be You, shining on others through us. Let us thus praise You in the way You love best, by shining on those around us. Let us preach You without preaching, not by words but by example, by the catching force, the sympathetic influence of what we do, the evident fullness of the love our hearts bear for You.”…….We can not give what we do not have….Catholics were not born to live “comfortable lives”, we were born to give ourselves way….In doing so, we allow Christ to “fill us” with his Spirit and Life…This is how we are effective as disciples and this is how we reach a hand out to the lost and the wounded of the world….Mere words will never accomplish this, even the most beautiful of words……..Our world does not need another sermon - It needs witnesses…….Catholics must become all things to all people - Yes - That means we must go to the margins of society………..The “deeper the water” - The “bigger the fish”……JMJ
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