SPEAKER_02: Welcome to Heart of the Homily Podcast.
SPEAKER_02: My name is Michelle Lopez.
SPEAKER_02: I'm here with Father Rigova.
SPEAKER_00: How's it going, Michelle?
SPEAKER_02: Doing good.
SPEAKER_02: Another day, another Monday, another Heart of the Homily Podcast.
SPEAKER_02: I'm looking forward to this one, Father.
SPEAKER_00: What a privilege.
SPEAKER_00: It's uh I I have to say these have been fun.
SPEAKER_00: So thanks for putting these together.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's it's been a joy.
SPEAKER_02: And it's been, I mean, personally so enriching to be able to, you know, the intention of our podcast is to help take the gospel in the Homily into from the pew into the rest of our week.
SPEAKER_02: And I feel like it's it's done that for me.
SPEAKER_02: Um I think about it as days go on every week.
SPEAKER_02: So I'm hoping our listeners are the same.
SPEAKER_02: You're taking the message from the pew into the week.
SPEAKER_00: I agree.
SPEAKER_00: And I I think it's kind of cool that the feedback that I get or someone who uh listens every day or listens to the podcast once a week, they're driving into work or they're doing their exercise in the morning.
SPEAKER_00: Um, I was at the gala for Edmanos de la Cae, and uh this beautiful lady says that um she introduces me to her husband, and her husband's like, You're the voice I hear in my house in the morning.
SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh, she she plays, I guess she plays it out loud.
SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
SPEAKER_00: It was so cool.
SPEAKER_02: That is so good.
SPEAKER_02: Well, today we are um looking at the Gospel of Matthew, chapter nine.
SPEAKER_02: I'm just gonna read the first half of the gospel since that's kind of what you focus on, Father, in your homily.
SPEAKER_02: Um so we'll start here.
SPEAKER_02: So the Gospel of Matthew.
SPEAKER_02: At the sight of the crowds, Jesus's heart was moved with pity for them because they were troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd.
SPEAKER_02: Then he said to his disciples, The harvest is abundant, but the laborers are few.
SPEAKER_02: So ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.
SPEAKER_02: Then he summoned his twelve and gave authority over clean over unclean spirits to drive them out and cure every disease and every illness.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, so Father, that's the first part of the homely that you really zoned in on.
SPEAKER_02: Um, and I gotta say, I was really moved by the beginning of your homli.
SPEAKER_02: You kind of uh talking about invisible wounds that Jesus sees, and kind of that Jesus was moved with pity and compassion for people.
SPEAKER_02: Um, but you start off your homli, like translating it into like what the suffering looks like of our day.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_02: What kind of inspired you?
SPEAKER_02: Because I think a lot of you named you know the overwhelmed young mother, the um the older person, the the widow.
SPEAKER_02: Your examples were very um very powerful, and I thought very much probably from people that you've walked with and journeyed with for years.
SPEAKER_00: Right.
SPEAKER_00: And um what happened this past Sunday is that for the like the last two weeks, I've been meeting with some really hard cases.
SPEAKER_00: I'm talking um stronger than the usual everyday kind of problems, and some very serious uh issues and uh problems that people are dealing with.
SPEAKER_00: And so I just thinking back on the couple weeks as saying, wow, the brokenness, the uncertainty, the self-loathing, um, a lot of the deep, deep wounds, invisible wounds, because I guarantee you, you know some of these people, you know a lot of these people, and you see them around and they're smiling, then they're fine, but they're carrying around some deep hurts.
SPEAKER_00: And as a pastor, is that something that I that's how I started my homily was it hurts because sometimes when I see people, I know that they're going through a really hard time.
SPEAKER_00: And they're doing a great job.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and they're reaching out and they're doing all of these other things that they need to do, but the cross is the cross, right?
SPEAKER_00: And and this is what they it's their turn to pick it up and go, and they're dealing with it, but it's still painful.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and you're and you're highlighting um that most of our our wounds are invisible.
SPEAKER_02: Like they're not the world probably won't be won't see them, but to Christ they're they're visible.
SPEAKER_00: A hundred percent.
SPEAKER_02: And I think that is such a when we think about Jesus' heart being moved with compassion, it's it's not that they're because they're in hot weather and that he's being moved with compassion, you know, it's not because they're hungry, although those things, yes, but he sees like the deeper reality.
SPEAKER_00: He sees right into their hearts, and that's why I think that that that line there that he was moved to compassion, because one of the things that I see it, right?
SPEAKER_00: So there's the two things like a lot, there's there's people that will come to see me and maybe go to confession or have a conversation, and I know that they not that they want to impress me, but they're guarded, right?
SPEAKER_00: So I don't want father to see me as as bad as I really am, or it's it's it's not that bad.
SPEAKER_00: And so they don't communicate the truth to the extent that they need freedom from this because they're still guarded, because even in confession or even in a an in a conversation, they're worried about what I'm gonna think about them.
SPEAKER_00: That's one side, right?
SPEAKER_00: And and I help people with this all the time, especially in the beginning.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, you're not here to impress me.
SPEAKER_00: I you're there's nothing you're gonna tell me that's that's gonna shock me or scandalize me.
SPEAKER_00: I'm here to walk with you.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not here to judge you.
SPEAKER_00: I want to walk with you because the only way that you're gonna be free, the only way that you can uh start to heal and that that Jesus can really hit at the root of all these problems is if you bring it to light.
SPEAKER_00: But if you mask over it and say, well, things are not that bad, it's okay, and I don't really want to talk about it, or I don't really want to bring it up to bring it to confession because either because of shame or or I don't want you to really see me.
SPEAKER_00: Um I'm not the one that you need to be hiding from, right?
SPEAKER_00: So if there's somebody in your life that you need to be completely uh bare open so that you can go to the sacrament of confession, is your priest, right?
SPEAKER_00: So you need to be able to say, I'm not here to impress this priest, I'm here for this priest through the sacrament of reconciliation to find the mercy of God and to start turning the curve on healing some of these wounds.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, Father, that's powerful.
SPEAKER_02: And it it actually makes me think when I started back going back to confession um in college when I came back into the faith.
SPEAKER_02: That's actually something I struggled with so much.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_02: Like I would wrestle with myself when I would go to confession because I was like, well, I don't want to say anything.
SPEAKER_02: Oh, it's not that bad.
SPEAKER_02: Also, like, what is he gonna think of me?
SPEAKER_02: But I remember it was so healing when I made myself be so raw honest.
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_02: Because I was like, God already knows all of this junk.
SPEAKER_02: And like, what am I doing here?
SPEAKER_02: And and just having to be honest with myself, a stepping back and being like, I need to show the doctor all the wounds and how I feel, like everything.
SPEAKER_02: I need to just be raw honest.
SPEAKER_02: And I think I was so afraid that I wasn't gonna be loved.
SPEAKER_02: And that's what prevented me, you know.
SPEAKER_01: That's the thing.
SPEAKER_02: Um, although I knew like confession is the priest and it's Jesus, and but there's still a part of me thinking like I wasn't gonna be loved there.
SPEAKER_01: Right.
SPEAKER_02: And confession began to be such a healing experience for me when I when I was amazed by how loved and affirmed I was I was when I started being sober honest with my confessions.
SPEAKER_02: Like it was such a place of healing for me, and I really opened my eyes to um to this place where I needed it, like that's my posture before the Lord and before mercy is to be like to wide open my heart and um allow my defenses to be, you know, knocked down and do that intentionally and and um yeah, so it just made me think Well, the thing is that we're so good at wearing a mask, yeah.
SPEAKER_00: And so we wear it all over in every situation um in in in our life and in different circumstances, and so when you're used to wearing a mask, sometimes you forget to take it off when you walk into the confessional.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and that is a hindrance, that is the worst thing that you can do because you're never gonna be free.
SPEAKER_02: Yes, yes, and it makes me think of confession, and I think sometimes when we pray, there can that mask is hard to take off sometimes.
SPEAKER_02: Where it's like, okay, well, thank you.
SPEAKER_02: I should be grateful for everything.
SPEAKER_02: Thank you, Jesus.
SPEAKER_02: Bye.
SPEAKER_02: Where it's like, no, how about we be real?
SPEAKER_02: Right.
SPEAKER_02: You know, so so good.
SPEAKER_02: Um, Father, why do you think many people suffer in in this silence?
SPEAKER_00: Young people?
SPEAKER_02: Well, young people are like the people that you named and the examples that you gave, there's like a silence to it.
SPEAKER_00: Um there's a silence to it because um they want to keep it together, they want to be strong.
SPEAKER_00: And I think that we live in a society, we live in a country where you're supposed to suck it up, you're supposed to be strong, you're supposed to do what you need to do to make it happen.
SPEAKER_00: And and um, and so you have the young adult who doesn't want to disappoint the parents who maybe the parents are putting pressure on you got to make good grades in school.
SPEAKER_00: What are you gonna amount to?
SPEAKER_00: What what's your next move?
SPEAKER_00: How what are you gonna amount to?
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and so there's so many pressures, and and then you have the pressures of a a young mother, a young wife, uh, of a of a husband.
SPEAKER_00: Um, all those different examples that I gave you are real, um, because it's the pressures of the world, and but the thing that I wanted most to come out of all of that is that Jesus sees it.
SPEAKER_00: You may not be good at delivering it or even um bringing it out, talking about it, bringing it to confession.
SPEAKER_00: You may not be good at that, but he still sees it, the whole picture.
SPEAKER_00: And and that's what what I wanted to that's how I kind of began the homily in this I this idea that he continues to look at the crowd, he continues to look out into the crowd.
SPEAKER_00: And what I love about this gospel is that Matthew uses that word uh moved with pity, and and the Greek word, and I I wanted to say it, but I was like gonna stumble through it because it's not an easy word, but it's splank, it's um esplankide or something like that.
SPEAKER_00: It's it's in the Greek.
SPEAKER_00: Um and in and from that word, it's it's from the it's from the root word splanktna.
SPEAKER_00: Again, Greek words, these are it's it's talking about the inward parts, the guts, the bowels, and ancient people located deep emotions not in the heart, but in the gut.
SPEAKER_00: And so in the gospel, it's saying that Jesus felt the crowd suffering in his gut, like this churning of this physical um ache that he has.
SPEAKER_00: Um and the detail makes point and it makes it makes it land in the sense that in the gospel, this verb is used almost exclusively of Jesus, and often right before he acts.
SPEAKER_00: Because if you think about it, before he heals, before he feeds the 5,000, before um the father that runs out to the prodigal son, compassion in the gospel is never a feeling that stays still.
SPEAKER_00: It always moves towards the one who is suffering.
SPEAKER_00: And and I think that that's the bridge, the bridge from compassion to commission.
SPEAKER_00: And that's where I wanted to go with the the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: It is really understanding how Jesus is moved to pity on such a deep level.
SPEAKER_00: But it's the bridge to what he does next, which is the commissioning.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
SPEAKER_02: And Father, you explaining that word, I think is so mind-blowing.
SPEAKER_02: Because I think when you hear the word pity these days, it's like, oh, what a pity.
SPEAKER_02: It's very surface, it's very like not um like you don't invest much with that word.
SPEAKER_02: But I think what you just shared of um what it actually means, it shows this like deep knowledge and experience of what the other suffering is like.
SPEAKER_02: And again, when we talk about um even bringing our suffer our invisible wounds to Jesus, like we're bringing them to someone that is feeling like allowing himself to feel it with us, right?
SPEAKER_02: Which that changes everything.
SPEAKER_02: It does.
SPEAKER_02: You're not alone.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, like to know that Jesus is like with us.
SPEAKER_02: Um, and even these invisible wounds are, you know, again, not maybe physical pain, but are emotional, spiritual pain.
SPEAKER_02: Like Jesus knows what that's like.
SPEAKER_02: And that's and that's a God that we can trust.
SPEAKER_02: Like that's a God that's trustworthy, that we can go so ramonous into confession, into prayer to open up wide our hearts and know that when he sees our junk, it's not with he doesn't, he's not repulsed, but he's moved with that fun Greek word that you mentioned, like he moves, he's moved with pity, that um helps us know that he's with us in it, not running from it, but is being drawn into it to save us from it.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and the whole thing about he's he says, well, they they are like abandoned, right?
SPEAKER_00: And and he uses that that term, they are like sheep without a shepherd.
SPEAKER_00: And that's important, especially in when you're reading Matthew's gospel, because he's quoting a phrase that has um deep roots.
SPEAKER_00: Um if you go back, it appears when Moses asks God to appoint a successor to Israel, and when he's and when he's asking God to do this, uh that quote is from there.
SPEAKER_00: It says, like a sheep without a shepherd, and you can read that in numbers, but um, and it it not and it goes again through um I I think it's Ezekiel, where God condemns the shepherds of Israel who fed themselves and not the flock.
SPEAKER_00: You'll remember that.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: He says, I myself will shepherd them.
SPEAKER_00: So when Jesus is moved at the shepherdless crowd, Matthew is quietly announcing the promise of Ezekiel.
SPEAKER_00: That he that he's saying that that that person, that promise, has arrived, and that that is in Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the shepherd um that God has promised from the very beginning.
SPEAKER_00: That's rich uh in compassion and mercy.
SPEAKER_00: Um but it's it's it's fascinating to me how from the very beginning it's all there, it's all sewn together, like this beautiful fabric.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and this sh sheep without a shepherd, um that being very striking, and then you know, I think recognizing that Jesus is the good shepherd that's going to mend wounds and bring them into the fold, you know.
SPEAKER_02: So I think about this, like you were saying, this encountering the Lord in his healing compassion, but then being a part of like this mission, this the folding of the the sheep.
SPEAKER_02: Um yeah.
SPEAKER_02: So, Father, I would love to kind of um you talked a lot about also like this spiritual hunger of our culture, that we have so much technology, information, entertainment, all these things that we've never we've never had so much abundance, but yet we are so poor.
SPEAKER_02: Um would love to kind of have you speak a little bit into how that connects to Jesus being this good shepherd and and really feeding the spiritual hunger this these invisible wounds.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I I'm fascinating by this.
SPEAKER_00: Uh I've done some reading on it.
SPEAKER_00: Uh never have we ever in the history of human of human existence have we been this connected.
SPEAKER_00: We have everything at our fingerprint at fingertips.
SPEAKER_00: We walk around with a c a full computer in our pockets.
SPEAKER_00: Um and we still are very lonely.
SPEAKER_00: And still I think that in a lot of sense it's made us worse.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of good has come through it, but how many people and I and I don't think we're gonna see the the real effects until several years down the road.
SPEAKER_00: Like a lot of these little kids who that's all they've ever known.
SPEAKER_00: And I just I think that there is um built into that that that loneliness factor because why you scroll by yourself, you get that high from looking at what you want to look at, and uh maybe if you're part of a social media or some sort of app where it it the likes and all of that creates the perfect environment for yourself to be alone.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because you can't post with somebody sitting there talking to you.
SPEAKER_00: You're like, wait, okay, I love what you're saying, but I I need to post this and then we can go back to our conversation.
SPEAKER_00: Or and so what happens is that now the the world that you create by yourself is more important than the interactions that you're having, and that's what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_00: It's it's we're creating bubbles, we're creating these silos where everyone's just I love to be just by myself, or I'd love to just go and and and just scroll endlessly.
SPEAKER_00: That's dangerous.
SPEAKER_00: It is, you're not living in reality, not living in reality, and you're not living to the potential that God has asked of you because the whole part of uh the second part of this homily was what are you gonna do for Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: Where are you gonna go out and where are you gonna serve?
SPEAKER_00: And and how are you gonna this great call that you've been given?
SPEAKER_00: How are you gonna make that happen?
SPEAKER_00: Well, you can't make that happen in your room by yourself scrolling until two in the morning.
SPEAKER_02: Right.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and it um, Father, you talked about kind of the greatest obstacle is believing we're not qualified.
SPEAKER_02: And I think um, you know, looking at what are we doing with our time and allowing really the Lord to give us this new vision of you know what our life is about and and who it is that we're serving and being able to be um a part of the harvest that is abundant, being one of the labors.
SPEAKER_00: Um I like that.
SPEAKER_00: I I it's I think that that was an important part of the homily in the sense that let's talk about who were these that that Jesus calls, right?
SPEAKER_00: This unlikely crew because for nine straight chapters, Matthew has been calling these men disciples.
SPEAKER_00: And the disciple is a student, that's the one who sits by the master to learn, um, someone who follows the teacher around, trying to soak it in.
SPEAKER_00: And I I can guarantee you, people were walking around in great numbers trying to listen to everything that Jesus had to say, because he was that I mean, that magnetism of of attracting people.
SPEAKER_00: Um and then we go to chapter 10, verse 2, and it's the very first time that Matthew switches the word and he calls them apostles, which it's incredible because apostle means one who is sent.
SPEAKER_00: A learner becomes a the one who is sent.
SPEAKER_00: And um, and if you look at exactly when that name changes, it changes at the precise moment when Jesus hands them the mission.
SPEAKER_00: And the second he sends them out, they get a new name.
SPEAKER_00: I love that.
SPEAKER_00: You don't become an apostle by passing a test, right?
SPEAKER_00: You don't earn it by finally knowing enough.
SPEAKER_00: You be you you become an apostle by being sent.
SPEAKER_00: The new identity becomes attached to the mission that you have now been entrusted to.
SPEAKER_00: I think that that a lot of us get stuck in just being a student.
SPEAKER_00: We're waiting to, well, I don't know enough yet.
SPEAKER_00: I I'm not holy enough.
SPEAKER_00: Um maybe one day I'll know enough or I'll be inspired enough, or maybe I'll I'll read the Bible enough, and then I can go out and do the Jesus work.
SPEAKER_00: But for now, I'm comfortable in the pews coming to Sunday Mass or weekday mass and listening to the readings, and I'll go home and live my life.
SPEAKER_00: But I'm a student still, I'm still learning.
SPEAKER_00: No, you already have a new name.
SPEAKER_00: And so maybe you have an answer to that new name, right?
SPEAKER_00: But um one thing that I was thinking about it, Jesus he tells them to pray, right?
SPEAKER_00: And he says, Ask the Lord of the harvest to send out labors.
SPEAKER_00: And I love that because the word that is used in Greek is this word that is almost I think it's the word that's used to cast out demons.
SPEAKER_00: So it's for so if I'm I'm I'm casting you out, I'm almost like throwing you out the door, like in this very forceful shove.
SPEAKER_00: Um, so Lord, thrust workers out into the field.
SPEAKER_00: Not nudge, not gently invite, thrust.
SPEAKER_00: And I think that that's when I was going through all this and I was researching for my homily, that's the kind of the message that I was hoping to give.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't want to be too forceful, but it was that go.
SPEAKER_00: Why are you not going?
SPEAKER_00: And looking you uh in the face.
SPEAKER_00: I'm talking to you, not someone else, not the person down the street.
SPEAKER_00: I'm talking to you.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and it was very beautiful because kind of father what you started with your homily was that compassion.
SPEAKER_02: And if we experience that that that true compassion of Christ, then we're moved to go out.
SPEAKER_02: Like the we want to be thrusted out.
SPEAKER_02: Like it's a natural response when that's when if there's an authentic encounter with like Christ, compassion, pity, um, mercy, then of course we want to be a part of his apostle of mercy.
SPEAKER_00: That's the whole key there, Michelle.
SPEAKER_00: That's the whole thing.
SPEAKER_00: Because hopefully a person who is struggling, a person who is is in the difficult situation, but they know God's love, they don't feel alone, they have experienced God's mercy.
SPEAKER_00: You can't just keep it for yourself.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I think that's the invitation is again the situations you named, we can all relate to them, is like an allow yourselves to be so raw with Christ to encounter his mercy, and then to be that, you know, channel of mercy for others, and knowing that Christ isn't calling you and thrusting you into being a laborer because you're perfect or because you don't have these issues, but it's actually in and through them that his grace can can run wild, you know.
SPEAKER_00: And it's the it and it's what Jesus says at the end of the gospel on Sundays, what you have received freely, you are now to give freely to the other.
SPEAKER_00: Because everything that you have, absolutely everything that you have, you may think you earned it.
SPEAKER_00: No, you received it from God Himself.
SPEAKER_00: Everything.
SPEAKER_00: And so if you have, if you understand the gift, if you understand the blessings, how can I not then give it away freely to someone else?
SPEAKER_00: Um, because it's not for you to hoard, it's not because you're uh you deserve it or earned it.
SPEAKER_00: No, it was given to you absolutely free.
SPEAKER_00: And what was given to you freely, now you need to in turn give to someone else freely.
SPEAKER_02: Father, you kind of use the phrase uh Jesus doesn't call the qualified, but qualifies the called, the called.
SPEAKER_02: Could you share a little more about kind of what is what was Jesus?
SPEAKER_02: What do you mean by that?
SPEAKER_00: And well, what I mean about that is, and and that's used a lot, like uh a lot of bishops will use that.
SPEAKER_00: Um but it's so true because if you look at the people, the men that Jesus calls, people would say they're not qualified.
SPEAKER_00: They're that's not the right team.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, we need to pick somebody else.
SPEAKER_00: But it's not that he's calling a qualified person.
SPEAKER_00: What he does is he calls and then he call qualifies the call, right?
SPEAKER_00: So, like the example that I gave about Saint Paul, which is probably something that most people could relate to, because Paul was persecuting Christians aggressively.
SPEAKER_00: We're talking a horrific act.
SPEAKER_00: And so if you were the recipient of a Saul who comes into your house, rips your dad out of the house, brings him into the street, the authorities take him.
SPEAKER_00: What do you think that family would think about Saul?
SPEAKER_00: And then later on, years later, hear that Saul now is Paul, you would say, Wait, that guy is now a Christian, the number one evangelizer, the one who's gonna save the church and uh is going around preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: That guy?
SPEAKER_00: That guy had a conversion, he changed.
SPEAKER_00: I don't believe it.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, right, and it's it speaks volumes to don't judge because there's people in your life, there's people that you know who have had major conversions who haven't been the very best people.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Who are now struggling to repair some of the damages, uh, heal some of the wounds, but who have come to know themselves in a deep way as a son or daughter of God.
SPEAKER_00: And who, because of that redemption, because of that love and mercy that they have received, now they live differently.
SPEAKER_00: And some pie, some people will be like, eh, I don't believe it.
SPEAKER_00: I don't buy it.
SPEAKER_00: And that's hard.
SPEAKER_00: And so we need to look back at what you're just saying is that God will qualify the call.
SPEAKER_00: He's not gonna call the qualified, he's gonna call, he's gonna qualify the call.
SPEAKER_02: And it makes sense because it makes it clear that it is the Lord at work and not their gifts, not that person, not their team.
SPEAKER_02: Like they might have gifts and talents, but I love that even the example of Paul, like it is very clear that it was Jesus at work.
SPEAKER_00: 100%.
SPEAKER_02: And I think you know, some of the figures that you named of Old Testament into New Testament, I mean, they again, they're not the person you're like, are you?
SPEAKER_02: I think you're on the B team.
SPEAKER_02: You're not on the A team.
SPEAKER_00: But uh is there is somebody else we can find?
SPEAKER_02: The Lord uses them to make it clear that it's his, it's his work, you know.
SPEAKER_02: And I think that's so encouraging to be able to, no matter where we are, you know, in our Christian journey, um, to say, Lord, use me and to trust that he will do the work of transformation to he'll he'll qualify you for the call.
SPEAKER_02: Um, we just have to respond with a generous yes.
SPEAKER_02: Um yeah.
SPEAKER_02: So, Father, kind of going into you know, discipleship discipleship is not necessarily about you know changing the whole world, but it's about loving the person God places in front of you.
SPEAKER_02: And you did a great job of, you know, because because sometimes I think we can think about mission and this big picture, but you brought it very close to like our daily reality.
SPEAKER_00: Because the reality is, and I'll tell you this, and I've seen it a hundred times, we're so consumed with the me, me, me.
SPEAKER_00: And I get it, our cross, there's some crosses that are very big.
SPEAKER_00: Some people have lighter crosses, some people have very heavy crosses, but we live in a society in a world where watch out for number one.
SPEAKER_00: Be thinking about you.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't do this, you nobody else is gonna do it for you.
SPEAKER_00: And so it's this constant me, me, me.
SPEAKER_00: And so I'm so consumed with the me that God will place right in front of me somebody that needs my assistance or just a word, a smile of encouragement, and I look right past them.
SPEAKER_00: I don't rise to the occasion because I'm so consumed in navel gazing.
SPEAKER_00: I'm so I'm walking around and it's just the world of me.
SPEAKER_00: And so it that's a dangerous place to be because the Lord is is wanting you to exercise this commission that he's called you to one person at a time.
SPEAKER_00: Not heroics, not curing world hunger.
SPEAKER_00: No, there's a person right now in your in a cubicle close to you, or your neighbor, or some friend that you have, or somebody you haven't talked to in a while, or somebody that needs your conversation, needs your phone call, needs a smile, needs for you to open the door with courtesy.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: And so why are we not exercising that?
SPEAKER_00: You've been called, you've been asked to do this, but we we look right past these people that God places in front of us.
SPEAKER_00: That's why it's it's a challenge.
SPEAKER_00: This week, open your eyes, go be and and that's where we're at.
SPEAKER_00: That's that's where you really where the the tire hits the road because am I practicing what I'm learning?
SPEAKER_00: Am I really applying the homilies, the Bible studies, the different mission nights, the formation nights?
SPEAKER_00: What we're doing as a team to keep to to inform and form hearts, well, it's gotta go somewhere.
SPEAKER_00: And hopefully it's it's through this commission of being another Christ to somebody.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, because the mission is closer than you think.
SPEAKER_02: You know, exactly right.
SPEAKER_02: And that's the way that we become labor laborers in in the harvest is by this daily outlook of um, yeah, knowing that the Lord can use you through these small um actions, words that are right in front of us all the time.
SPEAKER_02: Um, but we have to have the eyes to to see it and to, like you were saying, stop taking, shift our eyes from ourself to the Lord and to others and what um might be before us to respond to.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because up until this point in in the gospel, Jesus has been preaching and healing alone.
SPEAKER_00: For the very first time, we heard on the Sunday, he extends his own mission to others and sends them out.
SPEAKER_00: And the pattern is to see, to be moved, and then to send.
SPEAKER_00: It's the same pattern that we end the gospel with the Great Commission.
SPEAKER_00: Go therefore, make all disciples of all nations.
SPEAKER_00: And I think that this past Sunday is just like this miniature of the whole arc of the church, of who we are as Christians.
SPEAKER_00: Christ's compassion overflows into a people who are sent out into the world to be his hands and feet and and instruments of his grace in the world.
SPEAKER_00: That's what it is.
SPEAKER_00: He's asking us at baptism, you receive the same thing that the the apostles received.
SPEAKER_00: Now go.
SPEAKER_02: That's beautiful.
SPEAKER_02: So, Father, as we kind of wrap up our conversation today, we could talk all day.
SPEAKER_02: I know, it's so good.
SPEAKER_02: Um, and what I'm what I'm hearing in the last comment that you made is um encountering the Lord's compassion, and then we're sent out to have that same compassion.
SPEAKER_02: And I just think like what a what an invitation this week to um not only be attentive to how we might be living mission in different ways, but having the eyes like Jesus, like that, having that compassion for others like Jesus did, um, and being that's that's what's gonna give us the eyes to see our neighbor that needs a hello or the friend that needs a phone call.
SPEAKER_00: 100%.
SPEAKER_00: And I think that if you fall in love with the Lord in such a deep way that that's he should be enough.
SPEAKER_00: And when he's enough, all of these other problems and and important things kind of take second.
SPEAKER_00: And when he's enough, then we begin to see the person he's placed right in front of us.
SPEAKER_02: Wonderful.
SPEAKER_02: Well, thank you, Father, for um you're humbling in this conversation today.
SPEAKER_02: We hope you guys have enjoyed uh this podcast and share it with someone that might benefit.
SPEAKER_02: And we hope to see you next week.
SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Michelle.
SPEAKER_00: We'll see you next week.
SPEAKER_00: God bless.