St. Maria Goretti

What is it about us, as human beings, that makes us think that we know more than what we really do? How many times do we get ourselves into trouble, all because we assume, or pretend, or we guess about things that we really don’t know or understand? And how many times have we gotten ourselves into trouble because we THOUGHT that we knew, or understood, or had correctly identified the situation? It all goes back to our pride. How many guys have driven around for hours, wasting how much gas, all because we wouldn’t stop and ask anybody for directions? We could solve at least some of our energy problems and save all kinds of gas, if we just installed portable GPS units in all cars and trucks driven by men. But it’s not just the men. Women can be just as proud or even more so. How many times have you ladies improvised or substituted on a recipe? I have a friend of mine who was baking chocolate chip cookies, but who didn’t have any chocolate chips morsels. And so she thought to herself, what else melts like chocolate? So she ended up putting mozzarella cheese in her cookies. Her cookies ended up tasting more like pizza than they did cookies. We all do these crazy, prideful, things. Once, when I was in high school, I took apart the front suspension of a 1972 Plymouth Satellite. Did I know anything at all about the front suspensions of a 1972 Plymouth Satellite? No. Of course, not. But that didn’t stop me from taking it all apart. Our pride always gets us in trouble.

Today, in our Gospel, we see some other folks who are in trouble because of their pride. These people in our Gospel today reject Jesus AND His teaching all because they THINK that they know Who He is. They think that they know His father and mother. They think that they know where He came from. They think that they know ALL about Him. They saw the robes, they saw the beard, they saw that He was a Jew, and they heard Him speak, and that’s all they needed to know to dismiss Him AND what He was saying. These people are clueless. They have no idea Who they have in front of them and how much more there is to Him than just what they think that they know! And what’s more, is that they are completely closed to finding out anything else. They have closed their minds and hearts. We would do well today to ask ourselves if we have done the same.

Today, we begin Cycle B’s Bread of Life series. For the next several weeks in our Gospel, we’re going to be hearing St. John talking to us about Jesus being the Bread of Life, and His relationship with His Father. These are a beautiful set of readings. But as we begin the series today, we need to all remember how mistaken Jesus’ first audience was. Their pride, their false knowledge, and their closed hearts kept them from seeing God right smack in front of them. Do we have this same problem when it comes to the Eucharist? We see bread and wine. We hear some ancient prayers that a priest prays. We see everybody else coming up here to Communion. That’s what we already know. But there’s so much more going on with the Eucharist than just what we see, and touch, and feel. And it’s not just the Eucharist either. The whole Christian life is so much bigger and better than what most of us imagine it. We just scratch the surface! And the sad thing is that for so many people, scratching the surface is enough. God has so much more in store for us.

You know, for some of us, we’ve been coming together as Church in this former soybean field for over ten years now. Many have joined us over the years. Some folks have only been here for a few weeks. It doesn’t matter whether you’ve been here ten years or ten days, the reality is that right now, God is calling each one of us to even more. Some of us have gotten so complacent. We come here every week. We say that we try to be good people. We put Catholic license plates and bumper stickers on our cars. But we’ve become stuck. With these Bread of Life reading these next few weeks, Jesus invites us to continue growing. We are not done. There’s so much more that God wants to do with each and every one of us. And the only things that is going to stop Him, is our pride, our false knowledge, our egos. My brothers and sisters, it’s time we quit paying lip service to our Faith. It’s time we all quit going through the motions, and really got down to the business of following Jesus in His One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. Now is the time for all of us to take things up a notch. Let’s put a little more into our Faith, and I promise you, we’ll all get a whole lot more out of our Faith.
Those people in our Gospel who thought that they knew Jesus were wrong. We can be wrong too. There’s a whole lot more to all of this than we realize. Let’s give God the chance to show us His Truth.

May God bless us this Sunday, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit… AMEN !!!

St. Maria Goretti … Pray for us !!!