There’s a
story about Abraham Lincoln right after he was elected president.
He decided
that it was important for him to go visit a hospital with wounded soldiers
He always
enjoyed being with the people, to let them know he was there to support them.
No one was
so unimportant to him.
Now you
have to remember, Lincoln lived in the 1800s where pictures and communications
were very slow in coming
So not
many people really knew what he looked like at this time
So he
makes his way into the hospital
And immediately
he hears someone running down the hallway
Before he
could react, a young man collides with Lincoln and sends him sprawling to the
ground.
The young
man, looking down at Lincoln says: “get out of my way you tall lanky stiff”
Lincon, standing
up and brushing himself off says: “What’s really troubling you inside, son.”
My
friends, our readings this weekend are about being too caught up in ourselves
In the
letter of St. James, he speaks about the destruction people can cause if their
sole focus is on material wealth.
Wealth
does not satisfy, it just leaves the wealth-seeker wanting more
And in
wanting more, he or she does so at the expense of others
Others
become a means to an end
In the
Gospel, Jesus responds to his disciples being too full of themselves
Their
thought is that unless someone is physically following Jesus, they’re the only
ones who can speak or act in his name
Jesus’s
response? “Whoever is not against us is for us”
But he
doesn’t leave it at that.
He talks
about the things that corrupt the human heart
Here,
Jesus is speaking in hyperbole – extreme exaggeration to get across his point
He asks
his disciples to remove the things from their lives that causes them to sin
In a
sense, they are called by the Lord to empty themselves of sin and fill
themselves with the Lord.
What does
this look like today?
If you’ve
paid attention to the news at all this week, it has been mostly about Pope
Francis
He has
brought so much excitement to this country that is often bombarded with
pessimism and negativity
His very
presence has brought tears to the eyes of so many people
Because of
the message he carries and who he represents to the world.
If you
could imagine, there’s a huge burden to being the Pope
And for
Pope Francis, it could be so easy for him to make his papacy about himself
But the
world loves him so much because he lives authentically
He stays
true to the teachings of Christ and lives by them
To many
people, the teachings of Christ seem like so much of a burden
But for
the Pope, he embraces them
And shows
us the joy he has in following Christ
It is
enough to inspire millions of people on his short 6-day visit to the U.S.
When it
comes to sin, there is a lie that is told within our hearts
“This is
all about me”
And we
begin to see the world with tunnel-vision
We distort
the way we see the world to see how the world can serve us
But as I
said it before, it always leaves us wanting
And we are
never satisfied
And even
more so, it leaves a path of destruction behind us – often hurting others
Brothers
and sisters, I urge you today to make your prayer a prayer of self-reflection
Almost
like a giant mirror
As a
society, we hate to be alone with our own thoughts, with ourselves because
we’re afraid of what we might find
But this
is a lie that sin often tells us
If you’ve
learned anything from the Pope’s visit, let it be this
And this
is a quote from Mother Teresa, but I
think it summarizes what the Pope’s visit has been all about:
“You hurt yourself when you fail to be true to the
faith you have freely professed. But you will find true peace of soul if you do
what you already know you have to do.”
