ePriest.com: Your Spanish Homily

Readings

Reading I: Isaiah 50:4-9
Psalm: Psalms 116:1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 8-9
Reading II: James 2:14-18
Gospel: Mark 8:27-35

Preaching Tip

The Right Kind of Eye Contact

If we try to speak to everyone, we may end up speaking to no one. Here's how an expert solves the dilemma:

  • A good rule of thumb here is to pick out someone in the congregation and deliver as if you were speaking directly to that person, engaging him or her, occasionally looking at other people, then others in the congregation will want to listen too.
  • ...[TV talk show hosts] speak for fifteen to thirty minutes with one or two people. Only occasionally do they look at the audience. Yet they engage the audience. When they are personally and significantly engaged in conversation with one person, they are also engaging the audience.

A Practical Guide to Preaching, George F. Fitzgerald, C.S.P., p110

B To 24                                                                           

SANTOS O DEMONIOS

La visión de fe distingue a los santos de los demonios. Cuando Cristo pregunta a los discípulos "¿Quién dice la gente que soy yo?", Pedro responde en nombre de todos: "Tú eres el Mesías" y deja ver su dimensión de santo. Pero el mismo Pedro unos minutos después, cuando Cristo le hace ver que para alcanzar la redención tiene que recorrer el camino de la cruz, despierta en él la dimensión de demonio que lleva dentro, hasta el punto que Cristo lo señala con el dedo: "Apártate de mi vista Satanás. Tú piensas como los hombres, no como Dios". Dentro de nosotros duerme siempre un santo o un diablo.

Hermanas y hermanos:

1. Todos llevamos dentro de nosotros mismos un bloque de mármol en el que podemos esculpir la imagen de un payaso o el busto de un poeta; podemos vivir haciendo el mal o el bien. Pero las palabras de Jesús son tajantes. "El que pierda su vida por el Evangelio la salvará".

El que quiera salvar su tranquilidad, sus intereses, destruirá su vida; pero el que pierda su comodidad, su capital, por vivir coherentemente la caridad de Cristo alcanzará la felicidad. Debemos despertar al héroe y al santo que duerme en nuestro corazón dejando aletargados al pecador y al criminal.

2. El hombre de fe busca adecuar su vida a sus convicciones. La fe es una convicción divina pero se convierte en verborrea si no ordena su vida en torno a sus deberes para con Dios y para el servicio del prójimo. Creer es orar y es practicar. Santiago nos pone en guardia: "La fe sin obras es fe muerta".

Convertir la fe en obras implica sacrificio. Un creyente que no practica se convierte en una paradoja viviente, en una contradicción consigo mismo, en un desgarramiento interno que lo ha de torturar porque al mismo tiempo dice que sí y luego dice que no. ¿Cómo se distingue el estilo de vida del creyente y del no creyente?  ¡En sus obras!

3. Lo que señala nuestra identidad cristiana es Cristo. Seguir a Cristo presupone conocerlo y amarlo, pensar como él, sentir como él, actuar como él. Sólo cuando nos sentimos "seducidos" por él y modelados por la fuerza regeneradora de su persona, podemos contagiar también su espíritu y su visión de la vida. Ibn Arabi escribió que "aquel que ha quedado atrapado por esa enfermedad que se llama Jesús, no puede ya curarse". ¿Cuántos cristianos podrían hoy testimoniar la verdad de estas palabras con su experiencia personal?

Hermanas y hermanos:

Para ser buen cristiano no es necesario hacer cosas llamativas. Son los pequeños detalles de cada día, hechos con amor, con alegría, con sentido sobrenatural, a favor de nuestros hermanos. Pregúntate: ¿Quién es Jesús para ti? ¿Qué esperas de él? ¿Qué te impulsa a escuchar su palabra, a bautizar a tus hijos, a celebrar ciertas fiestas en su honor? Santiago nos ayuda a encontrar la respuesta correcta:  "Ser coherentes con la verdadera fe. Alimentar al hambriento y abrigar al que tiene frío." Que así sea.


English Translation

24th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B                                                                                                                              

                                                                                     SAINTS OR DEMONS
 
The vision of faith distinguishes saints from demons.
When Christ asks the disciples “Who do people say that I am?” Peter answers on behalf of all of them: “You are the Messiah” and lets us see his saintly aspect. But only a few minutes later, when Christ lets him see that to reach redemption he must follow the path of the cross, he awakens in him the demonic aspect that he also carries; Christ points to him and says: “Get behind me, Satan.

You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.” A saint or a devil always lies inside us.

Brothers and sisters,

1. We all carry a block of marble inside us in which we can sculpt either the image of a clown or the bust of a poet; we can live doing evil or doing good. But Jesus’ words are incisive: “Whoever loses his life for my sake and that of the gospel will save it.”
 
He who wishes to save his feeling of tranquility or his interests will destroy his life; but he who yields his comfort or his capital in order to coherently live Christ’s charity will achieve happiness. We must awaken the hero and the saint that lies in our hearts leaving the sinner and criminal sleep.
 
2. The man of faith seeks to adapt his life to his convictions. Faith is divine conviction, but it turns into blarney if your life is not ordered around your duties to God and service to your fellowman. To believe is to pray and practice. St James alerts us: “Faith of itself, if it does not have works, is dead.” To convert faith into works implies sacrifice. A believer who does not practice becomes a living paradox, a contradiction of himself, an internal split that cannot but torment him, for he first says yes and then says no. How can you distinguish the lifestyle of a believer from that of a nonbeliever? By his acts!
 
3. What reveals our Christian identity is Christ. To follow Christ presupposes we know him, love him, think like him and act like him. Only when we feel “seduced” by him and shaped by the regenerating power of his person, can we catch his spirit and vision of life. Ibn Arabi wrote, “He who has been trapped by that sickness called Jesus, cannot be cured.” How many Christians could witness today to the truth of these words with their personal experience?
 
Brothers and Sisters: You don’t have to do flashy things to be a good Christian. It’s the small everyday gestures, done with love, with joy, with a supernatural meaning, for our brothers and sisters. Ask yourself: Who is Jesus for you? What do you expect from him? What drives you to hear his word, to baptize your children, to celebrate the feastdays in his honor? St James helps us find the right answer: “Be coherent with the true faith. Feed the hungry and shelter those who are cold.” Amen.