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 and with your spirit. A reading from the Holy Gospel According to Matthew. Glory to you, O Lord Jesus said to his disciples, do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets.
I have come not to abolish, but to fulfill.
Amen. I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter will will pass from the law until all things have taken place.
Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do so shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever obeys and teaches these commandments will be called greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you, you will not enter into the kingdom of heaven. The Gospel of the Lord.
Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.
Perhaps some of the older crowd like me here might know who W.C. fields is.
He was an actor, a comedian, a writer and a well known curmudgeon.
A couple of quotes from him, I cook with wine.
Sometimes I even put it in the food.
I didn't know that until this weekend. It was WC Fields that said that. Start every day off with a smile and get it over with.
But don't let your children Google those quotes and read some more. They're not nice.
Some of them aren't very nice. Anyway, there's a story told about him, true story. He was on his deathbed and he asked for a Bible.
Well, the doctor walked in and saw him flipping from page to page and going down the column. And he said to him, because he knew that Fields was not a religious man at all, he asked, what are you looking for?
And Fields looked up at him and said, loopholes.
We all know how easy it is to point a finger at someone else's weaknesses or sinfulness or some group's sinfulness.
In the political society of our world today, it's easy to find people to criticize.
But if we're honest, we're all capable of of looking for loopholes, splitting hairs in rules and laws.
We do it.
A lot of people do it.
Even in our practice of faith.
Sometimes we look for the easy way out.
I can't begin to tell you how many times in the last 50 some years as priest, people have come up to me after a Saturday funeral or wedding and say, does this count for tomorrow?
Do I have to go to church again tomorrow?
We all look for loopholes and rules and laws.
It's important to remember that today's Gospel continues. Jesus Beatitudes, the Sermon on the Mount. Blessed are the meek. Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are the peacemakers. Blessed are you.
You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world. Today's gospel follows those sayings.
And today's Gospel is Jesus call to holiness and his call to action.
He wants his disciples to respond to the laws and rules of God and and do so in a generous way. Holiness is not just about keeping or not keeping rules.
Holiness for Jesus is going beyond what is required. He continues to challenge the scribes and the Pharisees who are the letter of the law. He continues to challenge them to adopt the spirit of the law. Why are we doing these things? Why are we following God's commandments?
And he continues to do that.
The teacher Sirach, as I said in the introduction to that reading a couple hundred years before, Jesus sets the stage for this beautifully. He says, if you choose, you can keep God's commandments. You can choose to act faithfully. A beautiful setting leading into Jesus teaching. And Paul continues also.
He talks about a mature faith that will come with time. We don't just believe and live happily ever after.
It takes some time and it takes some effort. Mature faith means recognizing and developing our gifts and talents, the gifts of the Spirit that we all have, and helping one another develop those gifts.
Following Jesus call to action requires some effort in our schools, in our workplaces, in our families, in this community, and in all of our relationships. Again, it just doesn't happen. We need to work on it. We need to encourage one another. We need to help one another.
Just yesterday or today, I saw something where Pope Leo is encouraging people during the season of Lent, which begins on Wednesday, to not use harsh words toward others.
That's a challenge and it's part of answering Jesus call to holiness and Jesus call to action. How we live it requires time and effort. It's not always easy and we run into problems. We run into situations where we don't want to do certain things.
But we continue to try to make the right choices for the right reasons.
We continue to try to recognize and develop the gifts that we have and that we recognize in one another the goodness that is there. We choose to respect life in all its stages and to make sure that we do that beautifully and to celebrate the life and the love of God and neighbor and self, as Jesus taught us.
It's that simple and it's that profound, and there's no need to look for loopholes.
