People believe what they see, even those who are “unwilling to see”

Today at Holy Mass we hear from the Gospel of St Luke…Jesus is saddened by the fact that his people would not listen to him….“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how many times I yearned to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but you were unwilling!”…People did not want to hear it…Jesus was God…..Jesus performed miracles…And the people still “did not want to hear it”…..Is it any different today?…..As a father I tell my children all the time…”Listen to me”…Clearly I tell them things for their own good but there is something about human beings that do not want to be told what to do…Even if that instruction is for their benefit……God is constantly trying to form us in our everyday life…He gave us Sacred Scripture…Jesus founded a Church, which provides us with time tested teachings that have guided great saint to do amazing things….We have Our Lady to teach us the about her son…We have the Sacraments to enlighten our minds and hearts and fortify us with grace…And we ignore it all!…..This is why Jesus lamented over his people today in the Gospel……..“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how many times I yearned to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but you were unwilling!”

“O God, I will sing a new song to you; with a ten-stringed lyre I will chant your praise, You who give victory to kings, and deliver David, your servant from the evil sword.”

When I was growing up my mother would say…”Don’t cut off your nose to spite your face”……How true that statement is…..The only person we hurt by not listening to God is our self…….What makes us not want to listen?…..Maybe it could be that some people who had authority over us in our life deeply disappointed us……Maybe it could be past hurts and wounds…..What can break through these “walls”?…I have learned over the years that facts and logical arguments will never convince people about the eternal truths of Christ and the Catholic Church…People need to see for themselves the fruit of a life that is completely invested in the Gospel…..Radical love witnessed makes even the hardest hearts second guess their life choices, which oppose God…..How does one give such a witness?…The answer to that is clear…..On our own we can not do it!…We must develop an deep interior life…..A radical Christian witness works from the inside out and then radiates to the world around us…The grace of God is real and trust me when I tell you, when people see a holy person, they know it…..This is the only way we as Catholics can and influence the world…..Our “best argument” for Christ and the Catholic Church is our life, witnessed and lived each and every day…….Over time those who encounter such a witness will second guess their own choices…That is a work of the Holy Spirit and not anything we can do or comes from us…Our job is to deepen our interior life - Period Full Stop!…By daily prayer, weekly fasting, and living a Sacramental life….These practices will lead us to a life of sacrificial love…And sacrificial love witnessed by others changes hearts…It cause others to question their choices….It sparks conversion…Such a life lived can not be “manufactured” and people will know if such a “witness” is “self-manufactured”…A sacrificial life is the fruit of daily prayer, weekly fasting, and living a Sacramental life…This how we change the world…First by changing our self

“Blessed be the Lord, my Rock!”

St Paul gives us some good advice in the first reading from today’s Mass….”Draw your strength from the Lord and from his mighty power. Put on the armor of God so that you may be able to stand firm against the tactics of the Devil”…In this statement Paul is comparing the spiritual life almost like to a war….But the “war” he is referring to is not a fight with others or a fight with the world around us…The “war” is within our very self…The greatest enemy we each face is our own sin…And only through God’s grace can we defeat our sins…..When we “overcome our self”, then and only then can we give a witness to the world around us…No one will be “convinced” if we do not live as Christ instructed us to live…That type of life can only happen as St Paul describes….”With all prayer and supplication, pray at every opportunity in the Spirit”…We can not give what we do not have……Before we convince others about the Truths contained in the Catholic Church, we must first be transformed by those Truths ourselves…Words do not “break down walls”….Radical and sacrificial love consistently witnessed is our best “argument”, which is the “fruit” of a deep interior life…Again, such a life cannot be “self-manufactured”…There is no response to or for such an “argument”…Even if people still “do not want to hear it”….A holy life witnessed stops the world in its tracks like a cold bucket of water poured upon someones head…..People believe what they see, even those who are “unwilling to see”