What do you do more? Homily for Monday, February 26, 2024

Readings for Today. Listen to our other podcasts.

Are we merciful more? Or do we judge more? Do we forgive more? Or do we condemn more?

What do you do more?

I made a decision a while ago not to read the news, not to pay much attention to the news. And the reason I did was because I realized that more and more it was taking over my life. I was getting so absorbed by the news and drawn away from the spiritual life, drawn away from God.

And then I think of readings like today and I think, “How much did reading the news lead me to judge, to condemn, to withhold forgiveness?” I think there is a temptation sometimes that we really want to focus on the political realm or the civil realm because the spiritual realm is so much more difficult.

Generally speaking, we feel like we have some control in the civil realm. We can speak our mind, we can share our opinion, but in the spiritual realm, we must surrender. We must give up control to the Lord Jesus Christ. We must place ourselves in the will of God and allow God to decide and for us to cooperate with what it is that God wants us to do, who it is that God wants us to be.

And if we don’t start there, we run the risk of expending an awful lot of energy for something that may not be of the will of God. What do, rather, these readings tell us? They tell us at the core, if we’re looking for places to begin, you notice Jesus doesn’t say, “Be politically active. Fight against this problem or that problem in the world.”

You know, in many respects, Jesus did almost nothing for the political reality of his day. Almost nothing. As a matter of fact, in an area where he might have been an activist, the treatment of the Romans, or by the Romans, for the Jews, he seems to almost ignore it by saying, “Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and give to God what belongs to God.”

Where does Jesus put his energy? Where does Jesus put his time? And where is it that Jesus asks us to put our time? Being merciful. Not judging. Not condemning. Forgiving. Recognizing, as the prophet Daniel does in the first reading, that I have sinned. I’ve been wicked. I’ve done evil. I’ve rebelled. I’ve departed from the commandments of God and the laws.

It seems to me that when we begin in this way, we imitate the great saints. I think of someone like Dorothy Day. I don’t know that people fully experience or know how much of Dorothy Day’s day was spent in prayer, not activism. She did great things. I think she’s a saint. I think she’s a saint of our age.

But she started with God. She went to daily mass, like so many of you. She spent her day in silent prayer. Let us ask the Lord today to help us perhaps to do even a little bit of measurement in our lives. Are we merciful more? Or do we judge more? Do we forgive more? Or do we condemn more?

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