Go, humble flock and reach where the brave Shepherd has gone before! Fourth Sunday of Easter 26 April 2015

Go, humble flock and reach where 

the brave Shepherd has gone before!

The Good Shepherd window at the Old Cathedral in Vincennes, Indiana. Photo by John William McMullen.

 Fourth Sunday of Easter (Year B) 2014      

 

Today’s first reading finds Saints Peter and John in big trouble for performing a good deed, indeed a miracle, in the Name of Jesus on a Sabbath.

Peter and John saw a beggar in need and in the Name above all Names, the Name of Jesus, they healed him and told him to “rise and walk”. How dare them do such a thing without consulting all the proper religious authorities – and to do such a thing on a Sabbath!

Human beings were created to observe the Sabbath, the authorities said to Jesus. But Jesus said the Sabbath was created for human beings! So Jesus knows what that rejection is like. He was forever in trouble with the religious leaders for healing on the Sabbath.

Peter and John are now in the same trouble as was Jesus the good shepherd.

What is so amazing is not so much the miracle as the hard-heartedness and narrow-mindedness of those who are angry that the crippled man can now walk!

Just like the original shepherd, the shepherds Peter and John, are in trouble for living the gospel message. The church is often criticized for its work with the poor and marginalized.

Some people often only regard the church as the pope and bishops. But we know that the church is far greater than simply the men in who called to be our shepherds.

Yes, the pope and bishops are to shepherd us, and have Jesus as the Good Shepherd as their model to follow, and we are obliged to hear their voice and follow their example.

The good shepherd is one who knows his sheep, protects them, defends them, cares for them, and is willing to lay down his life for them. This is the kind of shepherd the faithful recognize as a servant-leader.

Christ formed the Church as His Living Body on earth and the Soul of the Body of the Church is the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit urges us on to love as Christ loves! Our faith is about authentic relationship with God and with one another.

Our faith in Christ is far more than following a list of rules and knowing what NOT to do. As one of my students said of a fellow teacher: “She is really good at telling me what I cannot to do, but why doesn’t she focus on what I can do? Or let me know when I am doing well?”

We all long for authentic Christian lives as examples to follow. But when we see some Christians more concerned with outward appearances than with the gospel, more concerned about rules than about love and mercy, more concerned with law than about justice, I can see why some people have become disillusioned with the Church or religion.

If a church community ceases to be the living presence of Jesus to a weary world, then it can become an obstacle to faith in Jesus.

So when we gather as church, as the body of Christ, the church as the visible presence of Jesus in the world.

And if we are living that reality, then the Church must be like her Lord, human and vulnerable as was Jesus the Good Shepherd when he humbled himself to share in our humanity. Jesus was rejected and cast away, crucified as a common criminal. In fact he laid down his life in death so that you and I might live!

Yet today we are called to allow ourselves to be shepherded by the Good Shepherd who was rejected.

But most people in Jesus’ day would say that there was no such thing as a good shepherd. They smelled bad, many were thieves, and would run off at the first sign of a wolf or predator, leaving their sheep vulnerable to attack. In other words, they were the outcasts of all outcasts in society. 

But recall that the angels first appeared to the shepherds at Jesus’ birth, he who would be the Lamb of God, so it is an appropriate metaphor, and therefore we cannot so easily dismiss the shepherd image.

Jesus was cast off, but he insists: “I am the good shepherd, and I know mine and mine know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I will lay down my life for the sheep.”

Perhaps we think it beneath our dignity to be called sheep, yet Jesus himself humbled himself to share in our humanity and is called the Lamb of God. The last time I checked, a lamb is a sheep. And now he is the Good Shepherd. We are in good hands as His sheep.

We stand for human life. We stand for the underdog. We stand with the vulnerable. We stand for the powerless, the voiceless, the downtrodden, and, yes, we even stand with those who get themselves into terrible situations, for Jesus came to seek and to save what was lost!

There are no disposable stray sheep for the Good Shepherd and so it must be that way for the Church! If we are God's children, and we know that we shall be like him, then each of us must be prepared to shepherd souls into the pasture of God’s Kingdom.

There are no prodigal sons or daughters so far gone that we write them off as losses, there are no lost sheep that we can write off as losses for tax purposes! Christ died and rose for each and every member of the human family!

I know how easy it is to drive around town and see people who look so haggard, so ragged; their face is blemished and they are missing teeth and we say “there’s another meth-head” or “there’s trouble.”

But Christ the Good Shepherd would have us say, “There is one of my least ones. There is one of my children, created in my image and likeness! Ah, he may look like a lump of coal, but he is a diamond in the rough. It is for you to go find him, not judge him.  Go, humble flock and reach where the brave Shepherd has gone before.

Or “There is one of my lost daughters of Eve. I know she looks like a slimy oyster, but within is a pearl of great price. Go seek the pearl, and do not judge. Go, humble flock and reach where the brave Shepherd has gone before.

God our Father, we are the sheep of your pasture, the sheep you have redeemed by your Precious Blood of the Lamb, of God, the True Lamb who has taken away the sins of our world; The Lamb, once slain, who lives forever, your Son Jesus Christ, the True Shepherd of our souls!

Lead us, Lord – no, compel us, Lord – to take your message of mercy to where no one else wants to go; to go out in search of the sheep who think they have no shepherd, the sheep who have lost their way; to the sheep who are in places and situations where they can no longer hear the Shepherd’s voice, and let them know that there is a Good Shepherd who has laid down his life for them, a good shepherd who wishes for them to come home to His pasture where He can tend to them and nourish them.

Go, humble flock and reach where the brave Shepherd has gone before!

Follow Me - 3rd Sunday of Ordinary Time Year A

Deacon John William McMullen

Here are the readings of the day

The TV flickers, the computerscreen glows, the cell phone flashes and beeps…. I turn the computer on and I have 50 new messages on Facebook ; 275 new tweets on Twitter ; others want me to connect on Linked-in, follow them on Tumblr, My Space, Instagram, Snapchat, Reddit, Pinterest, Vine, Youtube, KiK, Google-Plus and Skype – and whatever else somebody came up with this week.

It’s all too much. The world is too much with us.

There are a million glowing lights flashing for our attention; So many voices calling to us to follow them. But—seriously—how many people, places or things can we follow? And why follow them?

In today’s gospel, four fishermen, two sets of brothers, Andrew and Simon, were doing what they normally did, fishing, casting their nets into the sea; 

and their business partners, James and John, were busy untangling their nets, cleaning them after a long night of fishing. Then Jesus walks along the shoreline, entering into the midst of their busy, hectic lives and simply says: Follow Me.  

These plain and simple common men have no idea what their response will lead to. Yet the men drop their nets and all what they are doing to follow Christ Jesus.

How overjoyed Jesus must have been when these men were willing to trust him, enough to abandon all for him! Even if they did not know all of what would be involved in being "fishers of men." They did not question Him.

Did they recognize that the opportunity to follow Jesus was the greatest adventure ever?

The men immediately left everything behind in order to gain life and light. The disciples are the people who have seen the great light.

First and foremost, they abandoned their own wills for the will of Christ.

What keeps us from following Christ?

In our second reading today from Paul, we learn that there were rivalries and divisions in the Church at Corinth. Among the members of the church, some were too attached to particular priests or ministers, almost to the point where their loyalty was to these certain men rather than Christ.

We have seen this all too often in the Church: one group has all the answers, their theology is more pure than those other people over there, or those people that go to that other Mass. Oh, the divisions can be very ugly.

“You know, things have never been the same since Fr. ____ left here,” or “Fr.______ wouldn’t have done things this way; Deacon _____ was a better deacon than that one they got here now. Fr. ____ was the best pastor _____ ever had. No, Fr._____was the best. Why did Fr. ____have to leave? 

Okay, you get the picture.

The moment we begin to follow anyone else besides Jesus, we begin to divide and break apart.

Pope Francis spoke about today’s second reading this week, exclaiming: “Christ was certainly not divided. Christ’s name creates communion and unity, not division! He has come to make communion among us, not to divide us."

And so from all that divides us, Repent!

It was Jesus’ first word in today's gospel! Repent.

It’s a message we all need to hear.

Without the light of Christ, we wander around in the dark arguing with each other without direction.

“The people who have walked in darkness have seen a great light.”

Discipleship is FOLLOWING Christ. Putting no thing and no other person before Jesus Christ.

Christ is calling.

He seeks friendship with us, and he finds us in our boats, working hard, trying to get the knots out of our nets.

He calls to us through the Scriptures, through the Church, and through our neighbor, and in the depths of our conscience.

Will we leave behind our excessive attachment to whatever is keeping us from following Christ fully and intentionally?

Drop everything, especially the tangled nets of despair and fear, anger and jealousy; the nets of power and possessions, and the constant seeking for pleasure and popularity, and anything else that prevents us from hearing and obeying the call of our Lord.

Following Christ cannot be like a hobby, a two times a month activity, maybe. Following Christ must come before all else, all other things and all other lights.

Jesus begins his Church one follower at a time. He walked about calling his followers, meeting them in person, calling them by name; and Jesus comes to us today in much the same way, walking along the shores of our lives.

We are called to be fishers of men and women, catching people in the nets of the kingdom. 

We are called to fish our neighbors out of the stormy seas of chaos and watery whirlpools of sin.

And we do this by meeting others where they are calling them by name.

Yet to properly fish for Jesus we must be willing to spend time with the Lord in personal prayer. How can we share Christ if we do not know him, or if we aren’t spending time with him ourselves?

Just as Jesus encountered two sets of brothers, Andrew and Simon Peter and James and John, then sent them out two by two, he encounters us today as two parishes, Christ the King and Holy Spirit, and he calls us, and sends us forth.

This is an exciting time for Holy Spirit and Christ the King as we pray and work for our parish. 

And, like the disciples, if we keep our eyes fixed on Christ, then we won’t have time to argue about trivial matters; we won’t get trapped in the nets of rivalry. Instead, we will roll up our sleeves and join our brothers and sisters in Christ, and get down to the business of the Kingdom of God.

As one parishioner told me this week, “I have come to see that it’s not about me anymore. It’s about us moving forward” in faith to follow Christ our King empowered by the Holy Spirit.”

May we be as eagerly responsive to the call of Christ as were the first disciples.

What are you willing to live for?

32nd Sunday of Ordinary Time Year C

If you were arrested for being a Christian,

would there be enough evidence to convict you?

Deacon John William McMullen

This past summer our family went to a wedding Mass in a church where there was no air-conditioning. The church was sweltering hot – so hot that I had to remove my suit jacket. Many of the other men also removed their jackets as well. And when it came time for the gospel reading, when I went to stand up, my shirt was stuck to the hot wooden pew – as were the other men's shirts – and it was so hot that the varnish on the pews had become gooey and stuck to our shirts. Don’t get me wrong, I love Mass and I love to sing, but even I must admit that this wedding mass was a grueling experience given the extreme heat.

But then I thought what a small problem to have compared to being persecuted or suffering death for our faith!

Imagine being arrested for being a Catholic Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?

When we consider all that the saints and martyrs before us sacrificed and risked to practice their faith, we must admit that ours is a comfortable Christianity. Most of us can openly go to  church any Saturday or Sunday that we want.  Yet many skip church if the Mass conflicts with a sporting event or concert. 

Those who have gone before us were willing to give everything, including their lives, for the sake of the gospel!

Why were they willing to lay down their lives for Christ?

What is it that gave them hope that their deaths would not be the end?

Imagine a world where it is illegal to be a Catholic or Christian. Imagine that it was illegal to go to Mass. Imagine it being illegal to gather for community worship.

Unfortunately, we do not have to imagine this. It is happening right now in parts of the world.

Many of our brothers and sisters in the faith have risked their lives to fulfill their Sunday obligation by attending Mass today! And it seems every weekend a different set of Catholics has been attacked and put to death in Pakistan, Egypt, Somalia, Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Mauritania, Mali, Sri Lanka, Saudi Arabia, or other parts of the world.

In North Korea Christians are tortured, imprisoned and murdered; subject to public execution. 70,000 Christians are believed to be incarcerated in various prison camps in North Korea, veritable concentration camps.

And off the coast of the Red Sea in the Eritrean Desert there is a Military Prison camp where the authorities use the metal shipping containers to hold prisoners.

100,000,000 Christians today face interrogation, arrest, torture or even murder because of their faith.

Others face public executions by hangings, firing squads, torture, beatings, whippings, beheadings, stoning to death.* (The Global War on Christians by John Allen).

It is stories like these cause each of us to question ourselves: Would I be willing to die for my faith in Jesus Christ?

Therefore while our brother and sister Christians risk their lives to worship as a community on Sunday, what is our excuse?

For some it’s too much to drive an extra five minutes to Mass

Others have to shop on the weekends.

Still others have sporting events on the weekend.

Or Sunday is their only day to sleep in.

Others are more honest. One person flat out told me:  I really don’t have time for it anymore.

On any given Sunday only about 30% of all Catholics in the U.S. will go to Mass. 

This is astonishing, especially when we look to our ancestors in the faith who were willing to suffer martyrdom – in order to give witness to their faith – and the number of Christians being persecuted and being martyred today. Ours is a faith that millions are and have been willing to die for. 

 

The religious persecution of today is similar to what the Jewish people were experiencing in today’s first reading from Second Maccabees. A family of the Jewish faithful are being tortured to death for their belief in the Lord God, but the Jews died for their faith rather than disobeying God’s Commandments.

And despite the fact that they were suffering injustice, they believed that they would rise again.

Then in today’s gospel, the Sadducees – who did not believe in the existence of the human soul or the resurrection of the dead – come to Jesus and engage him in a ridiculous argument.

The Sadducees had a “what you see is what you get” mentality; they believed that this earthly existence is all there is, all that matters.

So in a very real way, the belief in the resurrection of the body and life everlasting clashes with the belief that this life is all there is.

“You’re born, you live, then you die.” Isn’t that what many people say today?

But Jesus points to the age to come, of the resurrected life.

So what is this resurrection of the dead that we believe in, that we profess every Sunday?

I look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.

 

Do we really look forward to this?

Our fervent hope as Catholic Christians is that we will rise on the last day when Christ will come again.

Our Baptism unites us with the Risen Lord Jesus Christ; and so in a mysterious way we already participate in the heavenly life. Our eternal life begins at our baptism!

And at the Second Coming of Christ, our bodies will be raised in a way that goes beyond our imagination and understanding. Our resurrected bodies will be made incorrupt and they will be rejoined to our souls. All people, the good and the evil, will be raised from the dead on the last day. This will be "the hour when all who are in the tombs will hear [the voice of the Son of Man] and come forth, those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment" (John 5:29).

St. John of the Cross said that before the believer is really ready to undertake the spiritual journey he or she must be “deeply struck by the shortness of life…and the need for profound repentance from sin and wholehearted surrender to God” (The Spiritual Canticle, Stanza 1;1).

The reality of death gives an urgency to our lives.

So then how should we live—especially in the face of persecution and the threat of death?

“…Our participation in the Eucharist already gives us a foretaste of Christ's transfiguration of our bodies: so our bodies, which partake of the Eucharist, are no longer corruptible, but possess the hope of resurrection” (CCC 997).

 

The second century theologian Tertullian wrote: “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.”

What is it that gave them hope that their deaths would not be the end?

It was and is because of the hope in the Resurrection of the Dead, the resurrection of Jesus Christ; this is what gave them the courage to risk their lives, to die for their faith and this is what gives us the courage to live for Christ.

If we were to die for our friendship with Christ, would there be enough evidence to convict us?

 

Or would we abandon Him as soon as we learn that the church doesn’t have air-conditioning?

 

WHERE ARE THE OTHER NINE?

Twenty-Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time               Year C     2013        Holy Spirit Parish            13 October 2013

Deacon John William McMullen

Here are the readings for the day: http://usccb.org/bible/readings/101313.cfm

photo courtesy of the internetmonk

 

Where Are The Other Nine?

 

In the first reading from Kings, Elisha the prophet tells Naaman the leprous Syrian to do something very common: go wash in the muddy Jordan River. Naaman was shocked by the simplicity of Elisha’s cure.

Naaman wanted to see some of the famous Lord God YHWH action – lightning, fire, smoke, the pizzazz of the almighty, omnipotent! Instead, he is told to go wash in the muddy Jordan River. He did as Elisha had said AND FULLY IMMERSED HIMSELF in the water and was cured. Very simple.

This simple act of being immersed, plunged into the water calls to mind our own baptism. Think of the ordinariness of baptism piercing our way into the life of the Holy Trinity. A simple act brings us into union with Christ! The ordinariness of water conveys God’s abundant grace. And it is in the ordinariness of life where we experience God’s grace; down in the ordinary muddiness of daily life.

In today’s gospel, Jesus travels through Samaria, and is met by ten lepers. These ten lepers were a community based upon their disease and their low social status. It was a community of outsiders, based on their brokenness, based on their disease!

 

Our world praises the beautiful and perfect, while it condemns the needy, sick and suffering, and holds the less fortunate in contempt.

But we are all poor before the throne of God’s Grace! 

And in reality we are all poor, blind, and lame, covered with leprosy of some sort. And no matter how many possessions we have, we are still poor and in need of something – or rather, someone greater than ourselves.

We are all lepers before God. We have the leprosy of sin. And Jesus encounters us in the midst of our lives, sin and all.

Jesus was willing to CLEANSE all ten lepers, yet it was the lone Samaritan who realized he had been healed and returned to Jesus, glorifying God; and he fell at the feet of Jesus and thanked him. But Jesus asked “Where are the other nine?”

Christ cleanses us all, but how many of us allow Christ to truly heal, restore us to true faith and relationship with one another? And do we return to Christ to give thanks and praise?

But where are the other nine?

The Samaritan is the example for a true disciple. He risks everything by returning to Jesus and worshiping him. But what gave this Samaritan the guts to join Jesus and join his community?! Jesus says it is his faith!

Whereas before the Samaritan was defined by his lack of acceptability and marked by his irreversible illness, he is now recognized for his faith – his abundance of life!

He returns to Jesus to give thanks for he is restored to a relationship of faith in God and Christ and the community!

In a way, this is exactly what we do here week after week! We join the community of Christ and His church!  We come sick, with our leprosy of sin; we acknowledge our sin and pray, Lord, have mercy! And at the same time we are overwhelmed with his love, and say, “Lord, have mercy!”

Christ encounters us right where we are, sins and all! We encounter Christ in the Confessional; in Word of God proclaimed, and the bread and wine transformed into the very body and blood, soul and divinity of our Lord!

Jesus says: “Go, your faith has saved you!”

At the end of Mass the deacon or priest says: “Go in peace, announce the gospel of the Lord, glorifying the Lord by your life.” We are sent forth in faith to love and serve the Lord. And we respond: “Thanks be to God.” But what does it mean? Where should we go? What should we do?

We have a task.  And it has a lot to do with Jesus’ question:

“Where are the other nine?”  

You will notice that his question is not answered in the gospel.

Each one of us is like the healed Samaritan. But for each one of us here, there are nine others who are missing.  

 In a way, our community is incomplete, as we can tell by too many empty pews. For every one of us here, where are the other nine? 

All of us have the task of restoring others to Christ and bringing them into the Church. We are sent out on mission—this is the task of evangelization that Christ calls us to, and which Pope Francis has been modeling for us.

Pope Francis’ message for today is: “If we keep our faith only to ourselves, we will become isolated and sick Christians. The proclamation of the Gospel is part of being disciples of Christ… missionary outreach is a clear sign of a mature church community.” (Pope Francis quoting Pope Benedict XVI).

To evangelize others is to invite them into friendship and relationship with Jesus Christ.

There is a simplicity in it. It begins with a smile. We begin by being a friend. We welcome them into our lives. We pray for them. We can invite them to Mass.

But first we ourselves must be in relationship with Jesus; we cannot give to another what we ourselves do not have.  

Like the cleansed leper we first fall at Jesus’ feet and call him Lord. Therefore, as we go, recognizing that we are cleansed and healed, we seek out the other nine who are not with us and bring them back to Christ, caring for them, especially the needy and most vulnerable, the spiritually sick and dying, welcoming them into our community of faith in Jesus Christ so that they too can be cleansed and healed.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if everyone one us invited just one person back to church?

And if any of you want to invite nine, then, please, by all means, do so!

Wouldn’t it be a wonderful testimony to the faith of this parish family?! Can we imagine the joy?  

 

What are we waiting for?

"Go, your faith has saved you.”

 

"Lord, Will Only A Few People Be Saved?" - Strive To Enter Through The Narrow Gate

Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time  Year C  25 August 2013

CHRIST THE KING Parish, Evansville, Indiana                            
Gospel Luke 13:22-30

1. There is no doubt that some followers of Jesus realized that His teachings were rather difficult and there was a lot of uncertainty in being his disciples because someone asked: “Lord, will only a few people be saved?” 

It is quite likely this was a question on a lot of the followers’ minds or being whispered among themselves, but only one had the courage to ask it.

But even though only one person asked the question, Jesus answered THEM in the plural: “Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I tell you, will attempt to enter but will not be strong enough. 

ASKING JESUS A QUESTION CAN BE DEADLY. OUR OLD IDEAS MIGHT BE challenged or shaken by getting us to really examine our faith, our own beliefs.

See how the person asks the question about others and see how Jesus then turns the question back to the questioner and has the person examine his own path: “Strive to enter through the narrow gate.”

Are we on the narrow path? Jesus is quick to quench any judgmental attitude, especially any elitist attitudes that places oneself above or better than others.

Instead of asking “will many be saved?” the person asks: “Will only a few be saved?”  Was it because he only wanted a few to be saved?

It seems some of the disciples already began to approach the kingdom of God with a scarcity mindset that believes that there’s not enough for everyone to have a share.

Why, if we let “those other people” in, then some of us will be left out.

And one may wonder how they asked the question? Was it asked to make sure that only their select few friends, “our kind” of people were going to be saved? Certainly not those other people. Why, they don’t even speak English – I mean Hebrew.

I don’t think I could ever share heaven with him or her or those people.

And, you know, I could never spend eternity with those other people.

Strive to enter through the narrow gate. 

2. Isaiah proclaimed: “I come to gather nations of every language.” All the children of earth would be welcomed into covenant with God. So we know that it’s not just an ethnic thing.

But the people of Israel believed themselves to be the privileged “few”. Those who were unsaved included Gentiles, tax collectors, the unclean and the rest of the decent sinners.

Jesus turned their belief upside down and insisted that membership in the kingdom was not for the  righteous few who were certain that salvation was theirs simply because they were born into it.

Even if we think we know Jesus and walk with him, unless we have a change of heart, we too could lose our salvation.

Jesus reminds us that God cannot be confined to our 
categories of saved and unsaved.

(Pause)

“Lord, will only a few people be saved?” 

“Strive to enter through the narrow gate

3. JESUS never directly answers the question, does he? He turns the focus from a curiosity about the salvation of others, to concern about one’s own salvation…

When Jesus tells us to enter the narrow gate, he is saying the road to salvation is difficult; but he is not saying that only a few will be saved. 

But what he is saying is that there are some who will not make the necessary efforts at entering the kingdom.

Either they do not respond in a timely manner or else they think that they can casually sashay into the kingdom without serious commitment to the cause of discipleship.

Then those who expected to be admitted, “no questions asked” are turned away, while those looked down upon as outsiders are the ones who will be seated around the banquet table.

Yes, there will surely be some surprises in seeing who is saved and who is not. Some of the insiders, the religious elites, may well be locked out, and the outsiders, the outcasts will be welcomed in.

“We cannot be a spiritual country club for the Catholic elite, but we must humble ourselves to serve the Word, become disciples, and evangelize the world with the good news. Otherwise we may become guilty of theological narcissism, and as Pope Francis cautions us: we run the risk of coming “isolated, sterile and sick Christians.” 

He coninues:  “We cannot keep ourselves shut up in our parishes…when so many people are waiting for the Gospel…we must go out…to seek and meet the people…in the nooks and crannies of the streets” (Pope Francis).

 

“Strive to enter through the narrow gate.”

4. Yet salvation requires more than a dip in the baptismal font, receiving communion once or twice a year, or being a mere acquaintance of Jesus or His Mother.

But some will say, ‘We ate and drank in your company.’ But he will reply, ‘I do not know you… Depart from me.

He even challenges the idea that just eating and drinking in Jesus’ company or gathering in his name each week is good enough to get to heaven.

So even just going to Mass isn’t enough. Hopefully, we are participating in Mass and not simply punching our ticket. Faith and church attendance must be viewed as more than some eternal fire insurance plan.

Unfortunately there are many practicing Catholics involved in parish activities who do not have a living relationship with God, with Christ.

Yet no matter how busy we are – no matter how much church work we’re doing, “if we’re too busy to pray, then we’re just too busy” (Pope Paul VI).

It is absolutely essential that each of us enter through that narrow gate of personal prayer – setting aside time for prayer and meditation. And when we seek holiness, then God’s grace will overflow to others

But we might say, “I was a lector!” “I was a Eucharistic Minister!” “I was an usher!” Or “I was a Deacon!”

“Strive to enter through the narrow gate

So even if we know all about the faith, and know all about God, and even receive the sacrament of the holy Eucharist, unless our faith is a lived reality, unless we truly love as God is calling us to love, then we are deceiving ourselves and we run the risk of losing the kingdom and being estranged from the Lord.

Unless we spend time with the Lord in prayer and spend time seeking out the lost and forsaken to bring them to Christ, we will be strangers to the Lord, and be cast out into the darkness where there will be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.

  

Narrow is the road that leads to life.

We are called to a personal relationship with Christ, called to be disciples; we have to pursue Christ on the narrow road and through the dark valleys to enter heaven.

“Lord, will only a few people be saved?”

Enter through the narrow gate.

No one is going to just stumble into heaven; it is a struggle.

  

(pause)

For the narrow gate…is Jesus Himself.