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Fr. Stephan: Many years ago when I was much younger, I was in minis living in Minnesota and was going shopping at a grocery store. When someone came up to me and said, hi, Sylvan. I turned around and said, my name is Stephan.
Fr. Stephan: Sylva's my father. He goes, oh, you look just like him. I'm thinking to myself, he's much older than me. But I remember my my mother is telling me when I was growing up, she goes, you didn't look like your dad at all. But now that you've grown up, you look just like him.
For better or for worse, I look just like him. But I really think it's more than just being skin deep. I've take I've really begun to live like my father. So I think I took on his a lot of his values on how to live life as a a as a member of Christ's body. I think I've learned learned that from him.
He was very creative, and he would I think I am too, and I think he's he would try things. If it didn't work out, he wasn't discouraged. He tried something else. I think I'd do that same thing. I laughed just like him, and I think one of the things that I've learned is it doesn't matter really what I look like.
What matters is what's going on here. I live his life. And he passed away about twenty years ago, not quite twenty years ago. And I think I he still lives on in me and my brothers and sisters. I see I mentioned this about, you know, about seeing something and seeing something beyond Because in the in the gospel today, Jesus well, actually, Philip asked Jesus, show us the father.
That'll be enough. And yet, Jesus, I guess, I get to see him being, oh, you come on. I've been with you this whole time. You still don't know me. Whoever has seen me has seen the father.
So I make it very clear, God, the father, is not something distant, far away, hidden, is right here in the flesh. So while I'm in the father, you see me, and the father's in me. So his words are the words of the father. His actions are the actions of the father. His love is the love of the father.
He's trying to get that to the people. Do you understand, my disciples, that I am the father is in me, and I'm in the father. Do you get that? Then he goes even further. More of a challenge.
At the very end of the passage today, he says, whoever believes in me will do the works that I do. In other words, what he's really saying is, now he's saying, not only do I reveal the father, but if you're in me, you reveal me. Do you hear that? We are to reveal Christ in how we live our life. Now, do we?
That's hard to think. Well, you know, really, I just believe in Jesus. Let me just believe in Jesus. Jesus said, no. No.
No. You will be a visible sign of who I am by your actions, what you do. Not being perfect, like Paul. Not being perfect, but loving and caring and merciful. And when we fail, ask for forgiveness.
I always say one of the biggest things about Christians that defines us is forgiveness. When we make mistakes, we say we're sorry. If we don't do that, we are living Christ. We are not living Christ. We can say we call ourselves whatever we want.
We're not living Christ. There is I don't if you ever heard this Mahatma Gandhi, famous, Hindu person in India, and, he said, if I get this right now, he said something like, I I would become Christian if I really met a Christian Because I believe what Christ is saying, but I haven't seen anyone live like Christ. And that's a should make us come to the heart of, well, how am I living my life? Am I really living like Christ? Because Christ says, whoever does my work reveals reveals who I am.
So and I think and then I think I'm I'm gonna look at the the first reading from, acts of apostles. You know, very beginning of the church, they're they're growing. They're really growing. And they realize they called them the the Hellenists. These were the people who were Jewish people who were Greek speaking, Greek culture, and their widows were not being treated well.
Oh, if you're Hebrew in Jerusalem, fine, but they didn't like really those people. And the and the apostle's saying, hey. These are all we're all in this together. We're all Christians together. So we need to figure out what to do here.
So they decided to have seven people, seven men to care for the the those who are in need. Now the famous one is Stephen, though in Greek would be Stephanos. So it sounds more like Stephan to me than Stephen. And they well, they were gonna serve those who are in need. They were gonna be the presence of Christ serving those who are in need.
That's what Christ would do. Christ would serve those in need. So they were the presence of Christ when the disciples' apostles were out preaching the word of God and praying, that they would then they were continuing that mission that they had by reaching out to those who are in need. I don't think it means when Jesus says in in scriptures today, those who do my will will do the fit my work and greater things, greater, more bigger, great greater things. I don't think it means we're all gonna be great healers.
You know, just raise our hands and everyone's healed. Or the sun's gonna sky's gonna open and everything's gonna be fine. No. The greater things is it's in the ordinary times in our life. That's where the great things happen.
So we listen to someone who's oftentimes neglected or not pay attention to, really listen to them, that's a great thing. It reveals Christ's presence who listens to us at all times. I think sometimes when we listen to our children, even though it's difficult to listen to them. I'm I'm one of 16, and I remember being the twelfth one and holding my mom's dress and going, mom. Mom.
Mom. Mom. And she didn't I I don't think she knew it was there. But when she listened to me, that meant everything. So listening is is really reveals Christ, revealed God who is among us, listens to us.
And I think when we forgive someone, really really forgive someone who doesn't deserve it, that reveals Christ who forgives us all the time when we don't deserve it. That's the presence of Christ. When we are present, when it's easy to be distracted, that says something about Christ. I'm a grief counselor, and I had to really be present to people who are talking to me about their grief. I could easily be distracted.
I could easily say, well, I I can't wait till this is over with. But to be present, really present, takes a lot to do. So when a spouse comes home from work, how was your how was your job? How how was it today? Being present doesn't mean fine.
Good. But it means being present there. Really being present. That reveals Christ. I think also, when we do something for someone else and not looking, what's in it for me?
Not looking, well, I'll do something for you if you do something for me. Or I'll do something for you if I have time, if it's convenient. When we do those thing extra things, that reveals Christ does that to us at all times, and Christ is always there for us, always listening, always forgiving, always present, always reaching out in our need. The invitation for us is how do people see Christ in us, in our actions, in our love? That's just our belief, but our how we live it.
We gather around the table of the Lord. Christ gave himself to us. I really believe I that my image of of Jesus revealing the father is when Jesus was washing the the feet of the disciples, the father was kneeling down and being there with us. When Jesus was feeding those who are hungry, it was the father who was reaching out and nourishing what we needed to be nourished in. When Christ was on the cross, arms outstretched, it was God the father who has point out his love for us.
Jesus reveals the father. The invitation for us is for us to reveal Jesus in what we do, what we say, how we love, how we forgive. We can't do it by our own self. It's by Jesus Christ. And we would be told in a letter from Peter, we are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, not because what we've done, but because of who we are.
Christ here present. We would be open to his grace to reveal Christ to one another. This has been a Saint Patrick Catholic Community podcast.
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