One of my goals in life is to get a laugh or a smile from someone that I come into contact during the day. My bride, Anna, always tells me not to quit my day job. She says that I would never make it as stand up comedian. She is right of course. I was a shy child and it must have been my way of overcoming that shyness.
In today’s Gospel Jesus says, ” Behold, I am sending you like sheep in the midst of wolves; so be shrewd as serpents and simple as doves.” Every day we meet people who are hurting, sinners like ourselves. It is hard not to judge, but we can never call evil …good. [Ezekiel 33: 7-9 and Isaiah 5: 20]
We not only confront moral issues but comfort issues. What do we say to a person who had a loved one who is ill or has died? The answer is we have the gift of the Holy Spirit received at the Sacrament of Baptism. Jesus says in today’s Gospel, “do not worry about how you are to speak or what you are to say. You will be given at that moment what you are to day. for it will not be you who speak but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.”
I am not forgetting the Sacrament of Confirmation. In reality, today, not every Catholic adult has been confirmed. My daughter Emily moved when she was in High School and missed the rotation. As an adult, she entered RCIA , but moved again. Many people fall in this same catagory. Still Baptism give us the tools to speak when the need arises.
Saint Thomas Aquinas has a beautiful quote, “Preach the Gospel at all times. Use words if necessary.” Sometimes words are unreachable, but your presence can also be the Spirit speaking through you. The Catechism of the Catholic Church # 736 says in part “He who has grafted us onto the true vine will make us bear the fruit of the Spirit…love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. We live by the Spirit; the more we renounce ourselves, the more we walk by the Spirit.”
How do we renounce ourselves, walk in the Spirit and speak to the world we live? This is the challenge of our Gospel today.
I used to work for the Internal Revenue Service for four years in the 70’s in the State of North Dakota. I worked with some great people. Believe it or not I made many friends which I still have contact today.
One day, I met a guy at the gym. We joked and laughed. In the course of our conversation he confessed to me that he had not filed his federal income tax returns for a number of years. Well I had taken an oath to enforce the tax laws for all the citizens of the United States and I had to collect his returns. My heart was not in it and really wanted to ignore it. He was self-employed for part of that time and I knew that he could have a huge tax burden. Well, I went to work and prepared his returns and because of refunds in some years and losses in others, he ended up getting a substantial refund. It ended up that he thought the IRS was the best thing since store-bought bread.
My story was an example of how the Spirit leads us. We do not always know the end result and may never know the result of what we do. However, when we are open to the Spirit’s lead … good happens. Good happens because we are grafted to the vine and this allows the Spirit to work in us.
I close with a prayer from Saint Thomas More,
“Grant me, O Lord, good digestion, and also something to digest.
Grant me a healthy body, and the necessary good humor to maintain it.
Grant me a simple soul that knows to treasure all that is good
and that doesn’t frighten easily at the sight of evil,
but rather finds the means to put things back in their place.
Give me a soul that knows not boredom, grumblings, sighs and laments,
nor excess of stress, because of that obstructing thing called “I.”
Grant me, O Lord, a sense of good humor.
Allow me the grace to be able to take a joke to discover in life a bit of joy,
and to be able to share it with others.”
God Bless
Bob Burford
