A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Luke. A discussion arose among the disciples of our lord as to which one of them was the greatest. Jesus, who knew their thoughts, took a little child and placed the child beside himself, after which he said to his disciples, Whoever welcomes this little child on my account welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes him who sent me. For the least one among you is the greatest. It was John who said, master, we saw a man using your name to expel demons, and we tried to stop him because he is not one of our company.
In reply, Jesus said to John, do not stop him, for any man who is not against you is on your side. And this is the gospel of the lord. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen. Every time I read this particular excerpt from our blessed lord's life, and these are his own words about accepting a a little child in his name. It certainly has a very contemporary significance.
What's a little child? When is the product of human conception a child and not a fish or a dog or an animal of some sort? Because there's no question that the product of conception is living. There's life before you have the product of conception. You don't get anything from a dead sperm or a dead egg.
So when when do you have a little child? And when do you accept or reject a little child? And above all and above all, notice our lord makes this very explicit. It's not just accepting the child. You could do that from diff all kinds of different reasons, and some of them are very mean, cheap reasons.
And some of them might be very idealistic and exalted reasons. But our lord says, when you do it for me. And that's the big difference. I never will forget mother Theresa when she was being interviewed. When they said they referred to her great love for the poor.
And she turned to them and said, I don't love the poor. I love Jesus Christ. Well, of course, you know, her very sincere I love that word. Sincere interviewer didn't know how to take that exactly because it didn't make much sense to them. But that's what the good lady said, and she's right.
She's right. Saint Teresa is no philanthropist. She's not an altruist. She is somebody who loves god very devoutly, wholeheartedly, and in very practical ways, but she loves god. And if you love god, you have to love his creation, his creatures.
The reverse, of course, is not true at all. We know that. We can love his creatures and forget there is a god. That's called idolatry. Now our blessed lord today stresses not only that you accept the child, but that you do it in his name.
Now this is a tremendous important point for the Christian life. So much of the talk today, and in the last two or three weeks, we have had plenty of it, and I've added my share. The point is that to be a Christian means to follow Christ. Not yourself, not your neighbor, your children, not your wife, not your husband, not your job, not an education, not a career, not good health, not a good automobile, not a good house, but to follow Jesus Christ. And that's the rub to do it.
That whatever we do, that we should do it in the name of Jesus Christ. That's being a Christian, not simply being good. There have been plenty of good people in this world. Believe me. Any graveyard has took tombstones of people who are almost completely anonymous, and many of them were good people.
You had good people before Christ. You have good people after Christ. But we're but that's not enough to be a Christian, to be merely good. Christian to be a Christian means to follow Christ, not yourself, not some internationally known theologian, not the will of the people, whoever they are, not the current attitude towards morality which moves up and down with the lady's skirts. It's none of those things.
It's being a follower of Jesus Christ and living in his name. Notice living in his name. In other words, that what you do, he can put his name on it. And he says, welcomes a little child in my name welcomes me. And I often think about this.
I just read yesterday about a lady who found herself with it, found herself pregnant, much against her own inclinations and her husband's. She was she wasn't supposed to have a baby at all, but, you know, you can't depend on women in anything like this. They fool you. She she was pregnant. She refused to have an abortion.
Her husband wanted her the abortion, so she refused. I don't know why she refused. But you see, from a Christian point of view, the most important part of that situation is why did she refuse to have an abortion? I don't know. But she didn't.
She had the baby, and as she said, it was the delight of their lives. And that's not an uncommon situation. But the point that we have to make is that when Christ asked us to follow him, he means precisely that, that we follow him, that there can't be any compromises on it. You can't do what you find comfortable. And this fine phrase of following your conscience, which covers a multitude of sins, and I sure can't go into it this morning, of course, you have to follow your conscience.
But the obligation is that you have a right for conscience, that you have a true conscience, that your conscience corresponds to the code, the rule of morality. And when you stand I mean, to you, the editorial you. When I stand up and say the pope is wrong, and I happen to be a practicing dentist in Greenwich, on whose side is the authority? If the pope came into her office up there in Greenwich and try to try to show her how to men teeth, I think she'd quickly show him the door, or she'd be subject to a great lawsuit, wouldn't she? We can't be our own theologians unless we're capable with the ability, the time, and the effort, and the resources to do it.
But the whole point is being, doing, acting, living in the name of Jesus Christ. And this is a hard thing to do. You get interested in your family, You get interested in your work. You get interested in a project which is for god, we say. Well, it's easy to forget that it's for god, and it's so easy to see that it's for myself or for somebody I love or for something else.
It's not easy to live for god. Why don't we hear more today about the morning offering? You never hear about it anymore. And that was drilled into me from my earliest years with the Christian brothers. We began every day with the morning offering before you put your foot on the floor.
After when you try to get out of bed, when it was a great effort even to get one foot out of the bed, you made that morning offering. And the very first gesture of the day was a pain when you were getting up at 05:00 in the darkness of the winter. You see, being being a Christian is not being comfortable. It's not making decisions that I'm comfortable with, that seem to me to be right. I do it because it seems to be the right thing.
That's not enough to follow Jesus Christ. To follow Jesus Christ is to know him, to know his will, and then to do it whether you're comfortable or not. And most often, you will not be comfortable because to follow Christ simply means to carry his cross. In the name of the father, of the son, and holy spirit. Amen.