Do our actions give proof to His Presence?
Thank you very much for your support of our BBQ Chicken dinner. We have 245 orders for this Saturday! Say a prayer for Rich Schutz. That is a lot of dinners, but Rich loves to cook. God bless him! Speaking of BBQ, in
our Gospel for the day, Matthew 8:28-34
, Jesus drives the two demons into the herd of swine. Then the swineherds went into town and reported what happened. The Gospel ends with the townspeople asking Jesus to leave their district. It seems that the swineherds apparently dissuaded their townsfolk from believing in Jesus. Also, it sounds like the townsfolk were more afraid of Jesus than the demoniacs. Because of Jesus, the folks and other travelers can now safely use the road. You would think that, with the results, the folks would have liked to have Jesus stay and spend time with him.
In our reading of the Gospels we know that not everyone who met Jesus did follow him. Nor does everyone who encounters Christ today follow him. So we should never take for granted our desire to follow Jesus and may we never lose that desire. As we make our prayers of gratitude, we should give thanks that we have this desire to follow the Lord. Also, personal testimony is quite effective. May we always be more like the woman at well who evangelized well to her town about Jesus!
We encounter Jesus in many ways. We encounter our Lord in our prayer, the sacraments, or life circumstances and where several gather in His name. On the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, I shared a quote from Saint Francis DeSales advising us what to do after receiving the Eucharist. At the end, Saint Francis said,
“and behave outwardly in such a way that your actions may give proof to all of His Presence”
When we do that, we are giving good testimony to all. Maybe the swineherds focused too much on the swine and not too much on Jesus and his amazing power. Two words simply drove those demons out. Two words! May God give us the grace to set aside distractions so we can focus on His Son in our encounters with him! God bless and stay safe!
In Christ,
Fr. Steve Breck
Pastor, St. Mary Magdalene
