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. A reading from the Holy Gospel according to Matthew.
[00:00:30] Speaker A: Glory to you, O Lord.
[00:00:33] Speaker B: Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan to be baptized by him.
John tried to prevent him, saying, I need to be baptized by you, and yet you are coming to me.
Jesus said to him in reply, allow it now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.
Then he allowed him.
After Jesus was baptized, he came up from the water and behold, the heavens were opened for him.
And he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming upon him.
And a voice came from the heavens saying, this is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.
The Gospel of the Lord.
Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.
I think most of us would acknowledge that words really matter.
They can be an immense comfort, and sometimes they can cut like a knife.
A word of affirmation or of love can give us strength to do very difficult things.
And while we may not know the depth of the detail of this event, I am sure that Jesus, hearing those words, you are my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased, would have given him the strength and the drive to do all of those difficult things that he was asked to do to get him through whatever he faced.
Well, I want to give you a few different scenarios of things that we hear and how they can affect us and change us.
The first one is more of a joke, but imagine, if you would, that you are dead and you are waiting at the pearly gates, hopefully to enter into heaven, and there's only one person ahead of you, and that person happens to be Mother Teresa.
And you hear St. Peter say to her, well, don't you think you could have tried a little harder?
Now, what would that make you think? Right.
Well, here's one that I actually experienced.
It was a long time ago at a 65th wedding anniversary party that I was invited to.
And as part of the party, the husband of this husband and wife asked for the microphone to say a few words.
And the words he said about his wife, who he'd been married to for 65 years, were unbelievably loving.
He talked about how generous, how compassionate, how wonderful she was, that she made him who he was, that she made him better and feel loved.
Now, I knew this lady and I couldn't quite see it, to be perfectly honest.
But to him, that's what he saw.
And we heard in the Gospel the words that came from heaven when Jesus was baptized.
You're my beloved son, with whom I'm well pleased.
Well, here's the last scenario. And it's one I'd like you to think about for a few seconds. And then I'm going to give you the answer I think that is most probable.
What do you think the words from heaven say about you?
If God were going to open up the heavens and say something directly about you, what do you think God would say?
Do you have any idea?
I'm going to give you what I think is the most probable answer.
And it isn't like St. Peter saying that to Mother Teresa.
But I think it's very much like that husband talking about his wife.
Because in the same sense that, at least from my observation, he only saw the goodness and the love in his wife.
I think in reality that's what God sees in us.
God's able to look past those things that are far from perfect in each one of us. God's able to look past our brokenness.
God's able to look past our weakness and see us at our best.
And I think God truly does look at each one of us in spite of our flaws, and does say, you are my beloved, with whom I am well pleased.
