Today's Gospel

The Toxic Fruit of Comparison

Welcome back to Radical and Relevant, where each day we're opening ourselves, the Holy Spirit, allowing Him to guide us through the reading of the day. And today's reading is from the Gospel of Mark 2:18-22. Now, John's disciples and the Pharisees were fasting, and people came and said to him, "Why do John's disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?" And Jesus said to them, "Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in that day. No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the patch tears away, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made. And no one puts new wine into old wine skins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost, and so are the skins. But new wine is for fresh skins. Is there a word or a phrase or an idea that captured your imagination today that the Holy Spirit used to focus you in on the gospel? Again, we hear these gospels over and over again in our lives. And the concept of having a word or a phrase or an idea to focus in on is because they're unlimited.

We could read the same reading 100 times today, looking for a different word or a different phrase or a different idea, allowing the Spirit to guide us, and the Spirit would guide us to something different. Today's reading begins with John's disciples and the Pharisees' disciples fasting. And of course, people questioning Jesus, "Hey, why aren't your disciples fasting?" At the core, what is this about? What is the core human behavior that we're witnessing here? And of course, the core human behavior that we're witnessing is comparisons. We see it in our own lives, right? People comparing themselves to other people, people comparing their experiences to other people, all the social media. That's a whole world of comparison, right? Whether we're aware of it or not, psychologically, there's something that goes on that we begin to compare ourselves and our experience of life to other people's. The problem with that, social media comparisons, is that we are comparing ourselves, our real selves, and our real lives with other people's fake self and fake life. Because the life we present on social media, that's not real. The person we present on social media, that's not real. Not even because we're trying to present something that's false or fake, just if nothing else, because it is incomplete.

Because it's like we're showing a highlight reel of our lives. And then people are comparing their real lives, the ups and the downs and the middle, the long middle, the mediocre days, the average days, so many of them. And then they're comparing it to somebody else's highlight reel, and then what happens? We feel less than. Feel like we're not enough. Feel like we're not doing the right things. We feel like we're missing out. And these are all the fruits of comparison. Comparisons are worthless in a world of individuals, and the fruits of comparison are toxic. So let's be mindful of the spirits working in our lives. The spirit of comparison is a toxic spirit. And let's exercise it. Let's cast it out of our lives. Have a great day, and remember, Be Bold, Be Catholic.