Show Notes
It's hard to truly live out our faith because it can be a risk. Fr. Rob reflects on this uncomfortable reality and how we need to live with love despite what others might think of us.
Gospel: Mk 6:1-6
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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 Mark glory to you. Lord Jesus departed from there and came to his native place accompanied by his disciples.
When the Sabbath came, he began to teach in the synagogue and many who heard him were astonished. They said, where did this man get all this?
What kind of wisdom has been given him?
What mighty deeds are wrought by his hands?
Is he not the carpenter, the son of Mary and the brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon?
Are not his sisters here with us?
And they took offense at him.
Jesus said to them, a prophet is not without honor except in his native place and among his own kin and in his own house.
So he was not able to perform any mighty deed there. Apart from curing a few sick people by laying his hands on them, he was amazed at their lack of faith. The gospel of the Lord being a person committed to faith can be hard, because oftentimes when we stand up for faith, and I don't mean pointing fingers at other people, but I mean standing up for people who cannot stand up for themselves, living with a heart that is loving and nonjudgmental and cares for those on the fringes, sometimes doing that means we make people angry with us. We get rejected, we lose friends.
It's hard.
And rarely do our scripture readings all point to that problem, that true faith lived out can be difficult and can come with rejection.
And I think back to those first days of my priesthood when I used to sit in judgment of what I termed the older curmudgeon priests.
Well, thankfully, I've lived long enough to become an older curmudgeon priest.
But when I was first assigned as pastor to St. Vincent in shepherd leaving here, I gathered with the biggest union of curmudgeon priests, which happens to be our deer camp.
And the king Curmudgeon looked at me and said, so you're getting your first pastorate? And I said, yep.
He said, well, I just want you to know. And he used more colorful language than I'm going to use right now.
If you're not making somebody mad, you're not doing your job.
And I kind of nodded my head and thought, boy, this guy's a fool.
The reason why I thought that is because I think we all can have a tendency to want to be liked by everybody, which can make us very vanilla.
We don't often take on challenges.
And what he was trying to tell me and what is reality for any of us is the moment you make a decision, somebody is going to be really happy, somebody is going to be really mad, and 85% of the people aren't going to care.
That's really the truth. Well, I've really learned that lesson because I've made enough people mad that I'm obviously doing my job quite well.
But it's difficult to live out our faith.
It's difficult to make tough decisions. It's difficult to stand up.
And like I said a moment ago, I think we all deep down desire to be liked.
But one of my favorite quotes comes from Mark Twain, who said you'd worry a lot about. Less about what people thought about you if you realize how little they do.
And I think that's most of our reality. We need to stop worrying about what other people think sometimes and just continue to act out of love and compassion. And let God be our judge. Let God be the one who sees what we do. Let God be the one who pats us on the back. Not other people, not even ourselves.
