In today’s Gospel reading from Luke 6, Jesus is called on the carpet by some Pharisees for picking grain on the sabbath. It was unlawful to “work” on the sabbath. (Of course, in our day and age this seems ridiculous. But they took very seriously the commandment to keep holy the sabbath.) Jesus reminds them about King David and his men unlawfully eating the bread of offering and tells them, “The Son of Man is lord of the sabbath.”
Please be sure and read the first reading from 1 Corinthians 4. It paints a very interesting picture of St. Paul. Paul says, “To this very hour we go hungry and thirsty,we are poorly clad and roughly treated, we wander about homeless and we toil, working with our own hands…We have become like the world’s rubbish, the scum of all, to this very moment.” Picture for moment in your mind Paul and the Apostles as he describes. Now picture your reaction.
It seems to me that an awful lot of folks these days look at Christians, and especially Catholics, as scum. Not because of our appearance, but our beliefs. If you're pro-life, you're "anti-women's health care." If you believe marriage is between one man and one woman, you're "homophobic." If you dare to say that all lives matter, you're "racist." You get the picture. The hardest part (for me) is to respond as Paul did. Persevere. Stand up for truth. Be Catholic. Be scum.
Father, may we always have the grace and courage to practice our faith, even in face of persecution and name-calling. Amen.
I think we have a lot of company Gus – difficult to respond as Paul did.
No matter where we attend Mass, I always check in on one site (http://www.ollmp.org/) because the pastor there has outstanding homilies. In addition, he always includes “sins of omission” – the things we want to do, plan to do, intend on doing, but don’t do – in the Penitential Rite.
So easy to say “we are not to judge” or pretend we don’t see or hear rather than speak up for our faith. Silence is akin to endorsing unholiness.
God Bless!