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.
[00:00:25] Speaker B: The Lord be with you and with your spirit. Reading from the Holy Gospel according to Luke Glory to you, O Lord. The angel Gabriel was sent from God to a town of Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph of the house of David. And the virgin's name was Mary. And coming to her, he said, hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you.
But she was greatly troubled at what was said and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. Then the angel said to her, do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.
Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus.
He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High.
And the Lord God will give him the throne of David, his father, and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever.
And of his kingdom there will be no end.
But Mary said to the angel, how can this be since I have no relations with a man?
The angel said to her in reply, the Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.
Therefore, the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God.
And behold, Elizabeth, your relative, has also conceived a son in her old age.
And this is the sixth month for her who was called barren. For nothing will be impossible for God.
Mary said, behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.
Then the angel departed from her. The Gospel of the Lord I have come to believe that one of the biggest mistakes made in Christianity in our world today is that there are times where we give a false impression that to be a follower of Jesus means that suffering disappears, that everything is going to be great and everything is going to be wonderful.
And that can work for a while.
If someone's life is going well, they feel good. But the moment suffering hits, a faith rooted in that can become shaken to its foundations.
Mary is a good example of what real faith is like, because she listened to these words of the angel, she questioned them, which is okay to do.
But then in the end, she said, let God's will be done for me.
Now. That changed the world, and it changed her life and it changed our lives.
But it didn't come without tremendous pain.
Now, sure, she was probably just on cloud nine when people began to listen to his words and be changed by them. When she started to hear those stories of how he brought healing to the infirm, how he brought sight back to the blind, how he even raised the dead in Lazarus, she would have been amazed at the power his words were having as he journeyed from Galilee to Jerusalem.
But all of that joy, all of that amazement that would have been in her heart would have been ripped to shreds as he was scourged and went to the cross.
It came with immense pain.
Yet because her faith was total, she didn't give up.
She held on.
She was one of the brave who stood at the foot of the cross when everybody else went away and hid.
Because she had learned to believe that God keeps God's promises.
Well, I think that's a much better understanding of what real faith is about than to say, following Jesus and everything's going to be wonderful because it's not our reality.
But following Jesus does do one thing that is totally beyond any expectation.
He makes sure that in the midst of the difficult moments, we're never alone, and that in the midst of death, he raises us up.
