Saturday, January 7, 2012

Gospel of Mark, chapter 13:11

If Christ was born in Bethlehem over a million times, but was not born in your hearts, what difference would it make to your lives? Nothing! The birth of Christ in Bethlehem is also our spiritual birth for He was born for us (Isaiah 9). He took flesh to show us how to live and how to love: “God so loved the world that He gave His only Son that everyone who believes in Him may not die but have eternal life” (John 3:16).

The Lord loved us so much that He gave us His Holy Spirit to guide us, and to protect us from the limitations of our own spirit that is compromised by the works of the flesh; pride, greed. lust, gluttony, jealousy, anger and human selfishness. What a gift the Holy Spirit is! Imagine what it would be like if everyone possessed this gift: No more hatred, no more wars, no more ruthless competition. Only peace, harmony and love in our world!

In today’s scripture, the Lord tells His followers not to worry about what to say when their enemies accuse them falsely. The Holy Spirit, He says, will give them the words to speak for the Holy Spirit is the spirit of truth. And, there is nothing more powerful than the truth; it cuts through everything – through hypocrisy, arrogance, false judgements. St. Stephen, the first Christian martyr, prayed for his accusers who stoned him because he spoke the truth. One of his persecutors was a man named, Saul, who was later converted to Christ on the road to Damascus in Syria (Acts 7:57-60).

When I first arrived at Sacred Heart, Okeechobee; a beautiful parishioner, Mel Gentry, who never did wrong to a soul, only did good; was brutally murdered in her home. Everyone was baffled by this tragedy, and wondered, “how could this happen to a good woman like Mel? She had no enemies, it seemed, only friends; and there was no evidence either of robbery at her house! Why would anyone murder her? What was the motive?” I later learnt the motive from the County Sheriff who told me that Mel was the victim of a contract murder. A court trial was coming up, and Mel was murdered to prevent her from speaking the truth. Mel was beyond worry because the Holy Spirit was with her just as the Holy Spirit was with St. Stephen, the first Christian martyr.
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>The death of Mel was not in vain for she became an inspiration to many parishioners of Sacred Heart. She was not in the slightest way concerned about the trouble brought about in speaking the truth because she possessed a holy power that is above and beyond everything else, even death. Mel possessed the power of the Holy Spirit to speak the truth.

Fr. Hugh Duffy