Our Responsibility

By: Rick Hernandez

​This gospel passage is heavy on my heart today.

‘Jesus addressed this parable to those who were convinced of their own righteousness and despised everyone else.

“Two people went up to the temple area to pray; one was a Pharisee, and the other was a tax collector. The Pharisee took up his position and spoke this prayer to himself,
 
‘O God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity -- greedy, dishonest, adulterous — or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week, and I pay tithes on my whole income.’
 
But the tax collector stood off at a distance and would not even raise his eyes to heaven but beat his breast and prayed,
 
‘O God, be merciful to me, a sinner.’
 
I tell you, the latter went home justified, not the former, for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”’ (Luke 8:9-4)

​Through this Gospel passage, our Lord speaks to us as He looks upon His Church in the world. I see so much fighting keeping us from loving one another, and the fighting keeps us from fully giving and receiving God’s mercy. Why is that? Have we, like the Pharisees of old, gotten so used to the institution’s ways that we forget what the institution is there for in the first place? We are all sinners.
 
All who pursue a relationship with Christ are trying to overcome sinfulness. If we see our brother struggling, we are meant to reach out our hands to help, especially those most in need of our mercy, guidance, love, and compassion. Our call is to become faithful followers of Christ, as He taught us, with humility and fully aware of our need for repentance, love, and kindness. 

“God loves us though we are poor and unfaithful, and so deserves our gratitude all the more: that is the means that would help you to get up and find courage. Do this without delay and try to forget yourself. You will see your faults better in God’s mercy than in yourself.” (Saint Peter Julian Eymard – Mrs. Antoinette de Grandville - December 8, 1867)

​We need awareness of our role in the life of the Church so that we may understand how our actions, words, and examples affect our brothers and sisters. Who is that we represent out in the world?
 
If today I am a follower of Christ, it is all due to those Christ sent to help me when my life was immersed in darkness and without direction. Through their love and compassion towards me, I rediscovered once again the love and mercy of God… mercy that I had known so well during my childhood but had forgotten… and it is because of the myriad prayers poured out for me from those who loved me even when they did not know me. When I was able to see Christ in their faces, I was able to set my heart to follow Him, the true light in the darkness. I remember thinking, “I want that same relationship with God that they have.”
 
Repentance and its acceptance are a means for us to start noticing God’s never-ending love toward us. This humility in repentance is the means to approach ever closer to Christ and His unending mercy. In the Eucharist, we receive without limits so that we may then share without limits.
 
Christ is alive and present in the Eucharist so that we may reach Him intimately and certainly, both in the hidden reality and in the present of our relationships with one another, united through Communion. This is so beautiful…
 
But I also remember what made me waver on the way back to Christ so long ago. What made that straight road crooked? It was the modern Pharisees whose actions confused me and kept sending me through mazes and dead-ends, keeping me from promptly finding my way back to relationship with Christ in His Church. I shudder when I consider that my actions in life may have led someone astray. Woe to us if we keep someone from finding Christ.

“Whoever causes one of these little ones* who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.” (Matthew 8:6)

​For all the times I have led someone away from Christ, I lay at the feet of our Lord in repentance and asking for forgiveness. I wish for all of us to grow in this awareness and commit to loving one another, for we are, in many ways, our brother’s keeper.

“Then the Lord asked Cain: Where is your brother Abel? He answered, ‘I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper?’ God then said: What have you done?…” (Genesis 4:9-10)

​What have we done, indeed… We are responsible for those who look up to us and follow our example. May we take this responsibility seriously and learn to live encouraging lives so that as we live the Gospel, we may shine Christ’s light on those who live in darkness and need us. 

“Encourage yourselves daily while it is still ‘today,’ so that none of you may grow hardened by the deceit of sin. We have become partners of Christ if only we hold the beginning of the reality firm until the end” (Hebrews 3:13-14)

​Let us pray: Beloved Eucharistic Lord, you are counting on us to help shepherd Your flock. May we all love You with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our mind, and with all our strength, and our brothers as we love ourselves. Amen.

Rick Hernandez

Rick Hernandez is a commonsense Catholic, Lay Associate of the Blessed Sacrament, and a Director for Elisheba House. He lives in Trinity, Florida, with his wife Ivonne and their children. He also writes for the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament's Daily Eucharistic Reflections and for Catholicmom.com