Daily Gospel Reflection

Time to Recalibrate

Hi, I'm Matthew Kelly. Welcome to Radical and Relevant, where we look at today's gospel. We're looking for a word or phrase or an idea that jumps out at you to anchor your day in the gospel. Today's reading comes from Matthew, chapter 9, verses 32 through 38.

"As they were going away, behold, a dumb demoniac was brought to him. And when the demon had been cast out, the dumb man spoke. And the crowds marveled saying, 'Never was anything like this seen in Israel.' But the Pharisee said, 'He casts out demons by the prince of demons.' And Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every disease and every infirmity. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them because they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, 'The harvest is great, but the laborers are few. Pray, therefore, the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.'"

What jumps out at you today? There's so many great ideas. There's so many great lines. There's so many challenging lines. What jumps out at me is the attitude of the Pharisees. Jesus has cast out this demon from this person. And the Pharisees are like, "Well, he only cast out demons because he's calling on the prince of demons to cast out the demons, and he's basically doing good by evil means," which is lunacy. But what strikes me is that we tend to find what we look for. If you're thinking of buying a Camry, all of a sudden, you see Camry's everywhere. It's like everywhere you go, you see a Camry everywhere-- or whatever car you're thinking of buying because there's something about our mind that focuses on that. The Camrys were there before. We just didn't see them.

And I think very often we do see what we're looking for. And our basic disposition tends to be either a positive one or a negative one. If our basic disposition is a negative one, we are going to find fault, we are going to find failure, we are going to find a lot of negativity in every situation and every person we encounter. And this was really the mind of the Pharisees. It was a negativity. And Christianity calls us to a great positivity. We should be the ultimate people of possibility. We should have a healthy optimism-- not a naive optimism, but a healthy optimism. We should have a healthy positivity to us. And so I think today is an opportunity to say, "Okay, am I slanted towards positivity or am I slanted towards negativity?" And if we find we're slanted towards negativity, then it's time to recalibrate.

Have an amazing day. And remember, be bold, be Catholic.