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 Luke Glory to you, O Lord. Jesus told his disciples a parable about the necessity for them to pray always without becoming weary.
He said there was a judge in a certain town who neither feared God nor respected any human being, and a widow in that town used to come to him and say, render a just decision for me against my adversary.
For a long time the judge was unwilling, but eventually he thought, while it is true that I neither fear God nor respect any human being because this widow keeps bothering me, I shall deliver a just decision for her lest she finally come and strike me.
The Lord said, pay attention to what the dishonest judge says.
Will not God then secure the rights of his chosen ones who call out to him day and night?
Will he be slow to answer them?
I tell you, he will see to it that justice is done for them speedily.
But when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth? The Gospel of the Lord Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.
Consider this the little disclaimer that often comes on the bottom of a TV program that you see But I do not claim nor have any illusion that I do things perfectly.
I will admit full heartedly that probably at least 9 out of every 10 things I do is misguided.
And when I do something that perhaps is virtuous, I usually screw it up the next day.
I realize that, but I want to respond to that last question. But when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?
And sometimes I doubt that he will, at least in the broad picture of things.
Now I know there are pockets of deep and profound faith people that witness to God without counting the cost.
Most of them tend to be women religious in their 80s who have the courage to speak up. But here's something I always use as a filter to decide, at least in my own head, if there's true faith.
If someone comes up to me or I see them on television or read about them in the paper who go out of their way to tell me I'm a Christian, I usually say they're full of baloney, and you might find that shocking.
But the way we show our Christianity has a lot less to do with proclaiming something and wearing a big cross around our neck than it does the action that we take.
The way that we live.
And at least in our world today, there are a lot of people out there in in front of microphones and television sets that tell us how Christian they are when absolutely everything they do is contrary to what Jesus said.
You can't tell me you are a Christian and reject the poor.
You cannot tell me you are a Christian and neglect the marginalized.
You cannot tell me you are a Christian and scream for war and vengeance.
None of those things are even close to being a true disciple of Christ.
And notice the beginning of this Gospel because that gives us a clue to how we can avoid that and truly be a people of faith.
Jesus says pray continually.
Well, what does prayer do?
Prayer says a lot more to us about ourselves than it ever tells us anything about God.
For in our prayer we are reminded how we best can be because prayer is a two sided conversation.
And when we're at prayer, God is allowed to speak to us. Once in a while we can hear his presence and be affected by it and change how we live.
The best Christians I know are the ones that never go out of their way to tell me, but show me in their actions, in their love and in their compassion.
And that's the lesson that scriptures like this are meant to teach each one of us that it's about faith that moves toward doing things.
That is true faith.
It's not about believing a doctrine and never living it out.
It's about being changed in our hearts, in our minds, in our lives to be true witnesses of that faith.
