“By their fruits you will know them”

Today at Holy Mass Jesus gives the first apostles their “marching orders”…..”Jesus appeared to the Eleven and said to them: “Go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; whoever does not believe will be condemned”……..How does a person even begin?……..How do we do it?……Before we begin this herculean endeavor, we first must be formed in our Catholic faith and secondly, we must be animated by the Holy Spirit…A Catholic can not give what they do not have!……It’s the Holy Spirit that does the “heavy lifting” through us….But what does it mean to be animated by the Holy Spirit?….We must make room for God in our life - That means we must “clear away” certain behaviors, ideologies and lifestyles that contradict the Gospel….John the Baptist put it best - “Repent and Believe the Gospel”…The Gospel will not make sense to us unless first repent……This is just the beginning - What else must a disciple do? - In order to “Go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel”, one must develop a deep interior life….Everything we do as Catholics comes from our interior life….This means we must establish a daily prayer life, fast weekly and live Sacramentally…..Once we do this - We will become instruments of the Lord and through our individual gifts and God given talents - We will effectively proclaim the Gospel…..Notice what else Jesus said today in St Mark’s Gospel - ”Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; whoever does not believe will be condemned”………Let’s not fool ourselves - There is a heaven and there is a hell…..And we as mere human beings cannot save ourself…..The Truth is not ours to manipulate and mold into something that suits our personal agendas or lifestyle…Man conforms to God - God does not conform to man!…..And when we as Catholics live as Christ intended, steeped in the Truth - When we live Sacramentally and Sacrificially - The world will take notice!….Our joy and peace will be contagious…..And in turn, we will set the world on fire!

“We proclaim Christ crucified; he is the power of God and the wisdom of God”

How do we tell if someone is the “real-deal”? - Meaning - If someone is an authentic Catholic?…..Jesus gives us the answer - “By their fruits you will know them”….Being Catholics does not imply a person is perfect, no one is perfect…But it does mean our life, which is fully grafted to Christ and his Church will naturally “bear fruit” for the Kingdom of God…And if you are objective and observant, you will see this “fruit” produced in real time…..The Christian world “says” it wants to produce this “fruit” - But are we willing to live sacrificially in order to be the people we were born to be?….Because if we “do not pick up our Cross”, we sadly are not only fooling ourselves, but will we never convince the unbelieving world of anything….Authentic followers of Christ, live sacrificially and their lives are lived for others…This is how we change the world - The only way!…….There is no such thing as what is coming referred to in America as the “Prosperity Gospel”…..Living as a Catholic means we pour our lives out for others…To not accept this reality is to live on the surface of Christianity….Such a mindset will not only limit our impact on the world but also prevent us from growing closer to God…..”Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple”…….Jesus meets us personally in the “space of sacrifice” - We must be willing to enter that “space”….And its from that point, that we begin our journey of transformation - “Go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature” - We cannot give what we do not have……..Before we change the world - We must first change ourself

“These signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will drive out demons, they will speak new languages. They will pick up serpents with their hands, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not harm them. They will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover”

Today at Mass the Universal Church commemorates the Feast Day of St Mark - As we all know, St Mark was one of the four writers of the Gospel….What made Mark’s words so effective? - So much so that two thousand years have past and we still are reading what he wrote….St Mark was so effective because he not only wrote “all the right things” - He lived them as well…As we say today in America - St Mark “practiced what he preached” - He “walked the walk and did not just talk the talk”….This is the mark of a true disciple and the only way we can live in this manner is to live by and through the grace of God….The words of Jesus Christ can never be lived out if we rely solely upon our own strength…This is why Jesus established a Church and did not write a book - The Bible was complied roughly four years after the death of Christ…And its through the Catholic Church, the one Church Jesus himself founded, that we are given the Sacraments, which elevate our human nature so we can be the disciples we were called to be…..No one is ever going to believe what we say unless we become what we say we believe…….People have “eyes to see” - They can “smell a fake” from a mile way!…..“Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? Or what can one give in exchange for his life?”………Each of us are called to die to our very self - And its in the “death of self” that we will find life and give life to others…..That is how you tell if someone is an authentic disciple…….“By their fruits you will know them”……….JMJ