Dear Brothers and Sisters,
This is a beautiful gospel that might not be so easy to understand because Jesus is saying if you don’t acknowledge me before my Father, I will not acknowledge you! It sounds like a punishment. But it is not like this at all; it is “a good news” since the Lord invites us to bear witness to him. It is not about going out in the streets to speak to people you don’t know or to knock on doors and tell people the end of the world is coming, or you have to be Catholic, or you have to believe in God.
This is not what the giving witness means. As a Christian I need to give witness to Christ by the way I lead my life. Others will notice how the Lord is changing me quietly, little by little. People notice that you pray, you do good works, and you speak less. It may not be easy to understand that the Lord is saying: what I say to you in the darkness, speak in the light. The Lord usually speaks to us in the darkness; he speaks clearly, precisely and we can more easily hear him in the darkness, which means our sufferings. It is like the prodigal son who heard the voice of God in his darkness, when he was eating the food of the pigs. In that darkness he heard the Lord saying, you have a father who loves you, who treats his workers better than you are being treated now. The son says I will go to my father and tell him that I have sinned against heaven and against him, I do not deserve to be called his son. Treat me as one of your hired hands.
God speaks to us in the darkness. When we are at our worst, then we can meet Christ. When you are in the dark, your marriage, your relationships with your children are a mess, you cannot put up with your boss or your parents, you are totally fed up. And then suddenly the stone is taken away. The Lord often speaks to us when we are in a dark spot. When everything is going well and comfortable, we don’t listen. You might even be in a situation like the prodigal son and about to eat what the pigs eat but you still are not in absolute darkness, and you think your life is pretty good and you are still chasing after money and power and success and being recognized. But somehow God intervenes. You hear something whispered quietly in your ear, at first. It was told to you in the darkness, now proclaim it from the rooftops.
What does this word mean? Your experience of suffering and perhaps your blindness to it, can now be proclaimed from the rooftops, to someone in a similar situation. This is the witness that the Lord is asking of you.
As a Christian we are called to remain true to Christ. Even if you are in a bad neighborhood don’t be afraid of what they can do to the body. The problem is not that the others destroy your body. Your spouse destroys you, of course, she corrects you and you are fighting all the time even in front of the children. Don’t you see that you are like a boomerang and that what you say to the other comes back to you because every time you despise your spouse, you are despising your own flesh.
You are beating yourself up and no wonder you feel sad often. When you destroy the other, you destroy yourself. Don’t be afraid of those who can kill the body. This is not the problem. It is true that the fights hurt us and make us suffer but this is not the problem. The problem is deeper; it is within us. The problem is the one who destroys the soul and the one who destroys the soul is the devil and we often listen to him.
I liked the homily of Pope Francis recently who said there are three things that destroy the gift we are called to give to others or three things that can hurt our souls. The first is narcissism which is to look at yourself the whole day, considering only me, me, me, me and not to give a fig about the others, not even your spouse or the kids or your boss or anyone. The narcissist thinks only about himself.
The second thing is to consider oneself as a victim, poor me, everyone gives me a hard time, a momma’s boy, I can’t because of the circumstances, everyone despises me, nobody loves me. All of these thoughts are related to the idea that I am a victim, that life is always against me and then we start to really believe it.
Finally, the Pope mentioned pessimism, to see darkness in everything, nothing is right in my life. It was wrong to get married; it was wrong to leave that job. God made a mistake and given me horrible parents. They don’t see that their history brought them to God. These vices can easily destroy the soul. These are people that we should fear. They can kill the soul.
Every day these are the things we must fight against: narcissism, victimhood, and pessimism. These are the enemies of faith. The Lord says that the good news is that I am with you, I love you, I am paying attention to you. This is the remedy, the antidote for this kind of thinking.
The second reading gives us hope. St. Paul says if sin enters the world through one man how much more will grace of God overflow for all of us because of Jesus Christ. He is the remedy, the antidote for this selfish way of thinking. Jesus Christ is the answer and where do we find him? He is in the Church; he is in your community, where two or three are gathered in Christ’s name, he is present. So don’t be discouraged, Jesus Christ is the answer when things get bad with us and with others.
When you get sad or overwhelmed go to church or to the community or get more involved in the parish or with a movement. This is the best vaccine that you can take. Don’t be afraid of those who can destroy the body, be afraid of the devil who can ruin our soul. The best protection against the devil is Jesus Christ. He is the one who loves you deeply no matter what you have done or will do in the future. No one else loves you like this.