Today's Gospel

Can You Really Be a Saint?

Is there a word or a phrase that jumps out at you today? I love each day having the opportunity to read the gospel and just pick out a word or phrase or an idea. Allow the Spirit, which is so dominant in this reading, to guide us toward a word or a phrase or an idea. I think sometimes when we experience the Scriptures, we go into a mode of, I want to understand every single thing in this scripture, and that has its time and place. But for what we're doing here, trying to prayerfully reflect on the Scriptures, the gospel in particular, and allow God to speak to us, allow God to enlighten our path. And that's why I encourage you just to pick a word or a phrase or an idea and to allow that word, phrase, or idea to come into your heart, to come into your life, to guide you in that day.

Two things jumped out at me today. One was just the idea of the Holy Spirit. Jesus promises the Holy Spirit, and He promises He will send Him, and He promises He will be within us, and He will be with us, and He will guide us. And I've said it before, I've never met anyone who relied too much on the Holy Spirit. Most of us fall in the other direction significantly. We rely too little on the Holy Spirit. We forget about the Holy Spirit. We don't invite the Holy Spirit into our lives, into the situations that we find ourselves into, into our decisions, into our relationships, into our struggles. Invite the Holy Spirit, and He wants to enlighten the path.

The next 10 years? No. But what we need to do today? Yes. He wants to lead us. He wants to guide us. He wants to share his wisdom with us. And then the other thing jumped out of me today, which has not jumped out of me before in reflecting on this particular reading. At the end, Jesus says, "He who has my commandments and keeps them. I love him. He loves me. He will be loved by the Father, and I will love him and manifest myself in him." And that's like a beautiful idea, right? Jesus is going to manifest himself in you. And we see that in the saints, right? We see Jesus manifesting himself in these saints in really ordinary ways and mind-bogglingly extraordinary ways. But we know it's not the person. When we see heroic holiness, we see heroic virtue, it's very clear, okay, there's a God thing going on here. This isn't this person. What's happening? Well, Jesus tells us, right, plain as day today. Jesus says, "I will manifest myself in you." And that's powerful. So let's invite Jesus into our hearts, minds, souls, into our words, activities, actions, decisions. And let's invite the Holy Spirit to play a bigger role in our lives. As big a role as he wants to play. Let that be our prayer to the Holy Spirit. Let's find that outer boundary. Let's be the first person who relied too much on the Holy Spirit. Let's try and find that place because I do think very often in our spirituality, the Holy Spirit gets forgotten, gets set aside. And it's like leaving a megastar on the bench and playing a game. And you've left legends on the bench who should be in the game with you and helping you win the game every single day. God bless you. Have a great day, an amazing day. And remember, Be Bold, Be Catholic.