Brothers and sisters. we listen to this word in order to find ourselves in it. We listen with an expectation that we will find ourselves in it. In order to help us do that, one of the things that is important in this passage is to see its context in the gospel. Jesus has just finished touring the towns of Galilee, preaching, performing miracles. By and large, His words fell on deaf ears. They did not hear a Good News. They did not find themselves in the word that He spoke to them, because they were happy, content, just the way they were. They weren't really bad people. The end result was, they didn't convert. They didn't receive Jesus Christ with open arms. They weren't dancing in the streets. They were indifferent to him. The truth of the matter is, that Jesus Christ was a failure. In His preaching in Galilee by and large he was a failure.

In the gospel we just heard read, what is happening is that He is coming to terms with that. Notice the way He does it. He looks to the Father and says: "Father I bless you, because I can see in this failure your hand. I can see how you operate." And how does He operate? "What you have hidden from the learned and the clever you reveal to the merest children." The people who think that they are so sophisticated, that they do not need a savior, these people, their ears are stopped up. And for them, there is no joy. There is no Good News. The only ones that welcomed Jesus Christ because they recognized their need for him were the tax collectors and prostitutes. The dregs of society. The people with their sins on their hands, those who could not even begin to pretend that they were good people. "God should be very pleased with me," the good say to themselves, looking at themselves in the mirror. "Look how good I am." This is what the good people say, because all the time we are thinking that God loves them because they are good.

The announcement of the gospel is quite different. God does not love you because you are good. He loves you because your bad, dearie. He loves you because He is good. His love is not a medal for being good; it is a medicine for being bad. This is way the worse you are, the more He loves you. The worse you are, the more you need His love. This causes a great scandal for the good, because then they begin to ask themselves "Why should I be good if that is the case? Why not be bad?" They react this way because the reason they have for being good is to make points with God, to get God to love them. This is how they operate, the way they think. This shows you the real situation. They're not interested in loving God, they're only interested in God loving them. They want to get something. If they could get God to love them more by poking Him in the eyes, then they would poke Him in the eyes. They don't care about Him. They just care about what they can get from Him. This is their sin.

But because it is within them, they do not see their sin. Because they do not see it, there is nothing for them to acknowledge. They think they do not have any sins. They do not need Jesus Christ. The do not need to convert.

Only the people whose sins are so public that they cannot deny them are the ones who are open to conversion. These are the ones that have nothing to lose and everything to gain by acknowledging their sins, and consequently their need for Jesus Christ. They accept the announcement that God loves me because I'm a sinner. They accept it truly as a Good News, because this is their only hope. And they are the ones who are dancing in the street.

"What you have hidden from the gifted and the learned (i.e., the good people of this world), "you have revealed to the merest children" (i.e., the broken, the sinners of this world). "Yes Father, it is true." It is true that it takes a situation of brokenness to break the deafness, to cure the blindness. Unless you can see your sins, you will not see your claim on God's love. You will not understand the real joy of the Good News. That news is that His love is a free gift, that no one deserves. You will think it's because you were so good. You will miss out on the joy.

St. Paul says something very strong to us today in the Epistle. He says, if anyone does not have the spirit of Christ, then He does not belong to Christ. Understand what that means. Jesus Christ was raised from death to the Fathers right hand in order to give us His Spirit, to empower us to love as He loves. This is what it means to have the Spirit of Jesus Christ. And how do you know you have the Spirit of Jesus Christ? First thing, do you love your enemy without effort? Are you able to give forgiveness to all without effort? If you can't, then, brother and sisters, you do not have the spirit of Jesus Christ. It's that simple. You do not belong to Jesus Christ, in the sense that you are not alive with his love. You're a dead member of His body. Whether you're a priest, or a bishop, no matter. If you cannot love like He loves, you don't belong to Jesus Christ. Convert, its the only hope.

Last month, I had a chance to go to Columbia, not South Carolina nor Maryland but South America, to Medallin. The first Sunday we were there, (I was staying at the seminary.) I went to visit with a small group of seminarians in one of the homes of the seminarians. In a little township just outside of Medellín called Enbigado. This young man was the youngest of 16 children and they lived in this little flat, one of a series of cottages. One next to the other with a roof and no windows. Down there I soon discovered everything is open. Anyway, we were there a little while when the seminarian said, "Lets go visit a family who has thirty children." Picking my teeth up off the ground, I said, "Thirty children!" I thought I had not understood his Spanish. I thought that was the problem. He said "No no no, they have thirty children." "Well," I said to myself, "I have to see this." I had to see what this mother was like. Well, we went down this little dirt lane, and at the end, about two doors down from where we were visiting, there was like a little ravine. We started down the ravine but first I noticed at the top of the hill a little sign that said in Spanish, "the Home of Jose and Helena". When we reached the bottom of the hill, I saw all these kids running around.

Then they told me the full story. This couple decided to open there home to the street children, the abandoned, the children of the drug addicts. They had nowhere else to go, and they ended up with thirty children in their home. I said to one of the ladies who was helping how they supported the place. She turned to me and said, "With love and donations." And I said to myself, "Ah, they have the Spirit of Jesus Christ." They opened their home, trusting in the providence of God and just picked up children where ever they could.

Brothers and sisters, this is what it means to have the Spirit of Jesus Christ. If you do not have the Spirit of Jesus Christ, you do not belong to Jesus Christ, St. Paul says. Now understand, this is not something that you can do with your own effort, because if it were, you wouldn't need the Spirit of Jesus Christ. You'd have your own spirit. You'd be like the people at Galilee. We cannot do that.

The Good News is that Jesus Christ can transform us. He can take from us the fear of death, the fear of death that comes when we ask ourselves: "How are we going to pay the bills? How are we going to do this? I can't stand the three I have now. How can I take care of thirty?"

Listen, this is what it means to be saved from the fear of death, something that is a gift from God. To be put in a situation where you have no alternative but to listen to these words: "Come to me, all who are weary and find life burdensome." Why do you think the Lord has allowed you to be weary and find life burdensome? For one reason, and for one reason only! So that you would finally give up, finally give up trying to go it alone. He says "Come to me. I am the one who has come to transform your life." When you try to make a success of your life on your own terms, you will always end up, tired, exhausted, trying to do it yourself, trying to save your life.

Jesus Christ comes to empower us to lose our life for the other. He has come so that we are not afraid to take in whomever the Lord sends, whatever the situation is that we find ourselves. Whatever the needs of the others may be, what we discover when you have the Spirit of Jesus Christ, is that everything is easy. "Your souls will find rest. For my yoke is easy, my burden light." This is what sets people dancing in the streets. Dancing because Jesus Christ has won a victory, not for Himself, but for us. When you can experience a new heart, the Spirit of Jesus Christ, then everything is different. Everything.