“The people were astonished at his teaching, for he taught
them as one having authority and not as the scribes (Mark 1:22).”
The last four Sundays, I have been preaching to you about
our call as Christians. First, we spoke
about our universal call to holiness that we received at baptism. Then we spoke about our call to always serve
others. Last week, I spoke about our
call to serve the poor, and this week we are reminded about our call to
proclaim the gospel with the same authority that Christ did. There was a way that Jesus preached the
gospel that captivated his early followers.
He did it with authority. Obviously
this came from above as the number of his followers grew. What we sometimes fail to comprehend is that
we too have this authority that Christ had to preach the gospel, for this authority
was given to us through Baptism and strengthened in Confirmation by the seal of
the Holy Spirit. Authority is
given. Just as the Archbishop gave me
authority as your pastor, each of you has received the authority to proclaim
the gospel by the Holy Spirit.
The trouble is that we sometimes do not preach the gospel
with the same gravitas that Jesus did, even though we have been given the
authority to do so because the same Spirit that accompanied Jesus in his public
ministry accompanies us every day. We
just have to have the conviction to preach the good news as Jesus did. Last night, I was celebrating Mass for former
Salesian students on the feast of St. John Bosco and I reminded them of
something Don Bosco once said: “In order
to do good, we must have some courage.”
Unfortunately, and you’ve heard me say this many times, as Christians we
sometimes lack the courage to go out and do good, to go out and defend our
faith, and to go out and boldly proclaim the gospel. One of the gifts of the Holy Spirit that we
receive in Confirmation is the gift of courage, and this gift propels us to do
amazing things.
Last week, one of brother’s fellow firefighters decided to
run the Miami Half Marathon in his honor.
My brother ran it two years ago, and they used to see each other running
up and down South Beach as they trained.
Yet this firefighter wasn’t simply going to run, he was going to run while
wearing 75 pounds of firefighting equipment.
I can barely take two steps wearing my brother’s old gear, and this
brave soul was going to run with this cross on his shoulders for 13.1 miles to
honor my brother. He didn’t say
much. He simply ran. Obviously, his gear caught the attention of
others including the media that featured him prominently in the evening
news. My family and I were deeply moved
by this gesture as well as so many others who saw this as such an example of
love and courage to call attention to the stress that all first responders have
to go through because they deal with unspeakable tragedies every single
day. But this courageous young man was
not done yet. As I was preparing to go
in for my last Mass of the day last Sunday, this courageous young man showed up
at the front door of our church to present to me the medal he won to honor my
brother. As my sister and I put these
stories up on social media last week, people were deeply moved. This is courage. This is true authority. This is preaching the gospel without saying
any words. This is selfless, sacrificial,
and heroic. This is what Jesus spent his
life doing. This is what each of us is
called to do. This firefighter reminded
us last week, that there are still Christ-like heroes among us. What’s holding you back from doing the same?
