Episode Transcript
[00:00:12] Speaker A: Welcome to the Blessed Sacrament Homilies podcast, where our mission is to help everyone recognize and experience the presence of God. We hope you are nourished and encouraged by the Word. Thank you for joining us.
[00:00:26] Speaker B: The Lord be with you.
[00:00:29] Speaker C: A Reading from the Holy Gospel According.
[00:00:30] Speaker B: To Luke On a Sabbath, Jesus went to dine at the home of one of the leading Pharisees, and the people there were observing him carefully.
He told a parable to those who had been invited, noticing how they were choosing the places of honor at the table.
When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not recline at table in the place of honor.
A more distinguished guest than you may have been invited by him, and the host who invited both of you may approach you and say, give your place to this man.
And then you would proceed with embarrassment to take the lowest place.
Rather, when you are invited, go and take the lowest place so that when the host comes to you, he may say, my friend, move up to a higher position.
Then you will enjoy the esteem of your companions at the table.
For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.
Then he said to the host who invited him, when you hold a lunch or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or your wealthy neighbors in case they may invite you back.
[00:01:57] Speaker C: You have repayment.
[00:02:00] Speaker B: Rather, when you hold a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind.
Blessed indeed will you be because of their inability to repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.
[00:02:16] Speaker C: The Gospel of the Lord.
Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.
I'm sure this will be a painful thing for some of you to hear, but I am not perfect.
And as a part of that, I have certain things that have been continually a flaw in the way I go about life.
One of those flaws is that I'm really bad at writing lists.
[00:02:42] Speaker B: Well, that doesn't contrast very well with.
[00:02:44] Speaker C: Also hating to grocery shop.
So I end up going back sometimes two or three times because I forgot something I've needed.
Well, this goes back several years at a grocery store that shall remain anonymous.
And it was during Advent, I think the third week of Advent, just before Christmas, and I was trying to make something and once again I forgot one of the main ingredients and had to go back to the store.
So I went in and my timing couldn't have been worse.
It was packed and I got in what I thought was going to be the fastest moving line. Another flaw I have I always pick the slowest line and. And as I'm in that line and we're barely budging and my irritation level is starting to spiral a little bit.
I looked two people ahead of me and there was a lady that pulled out what appeared to be a Rolodex file where she had all of her coupons carefully organized and she began to lay them out one after another, which took somewhere between three and four weeks to go through.
The next person in line was just buying what I think, if I remember right, was a quart of whipping cream, not anything that should take a while, until she found out that it was something like three and a quarter.
Well, I know I've got that quarter somewhere.
So she started to fumble through her purse for another three or four weeks, at which point in time I took a five dollar bill and say, ma', am, Merry Christmas, I'll pay for it. I gave the cashier five bucks.
Now, I did not do that because I am altruistic. I did that to save the little bit of sanity I had left to get through the line.
[00:04:54] Speaker B: Well, take from that time and go.
[00:04:55] Speaker C: Back half dozen years or so.
And I was coming back from a trip up in the U.P.
and shockingly enough, the Mackinac Bridge was down to two lanes, one each way, and the toll booths were socked in with people coming back.
And that line was again progressing rather slowly.
Well, when I finally got up to the toll booth, sweat running down the sides of my head, the person at the toll booth said, you're all taking care of. The guy ahead of you paid for you. He said, you waited long enough, you deserve a break today.
Now, that guy didn't do it because he was in a hurry. He did it because he recognized we were both struggling with something and he paid it forward.
Well, this whole gospel in reality is a reminder for us in virtually everything in life, we're supposed to pay it forward.
We're supposed to recognize that we've already got what we need, that we've been blessed, that we've been taken care of fully in God's love.
And that because we have received those blessings, we need to take care of others.
We need to be generous with others, we need to reach out to others.
And it's not about prestige, it's not about getting recognized. It's about being abundantly grateful for all that we have.
And imagine our world if in just a very small way, we all worked a little harder to pay it forward. In that instead of counting the cost, we try to be as generous as possible.
Our moods, including mine in that line might just get a little better.
