Daily Gospel Reflection

The Weight of Your Words

Welcome back to "Radical and Relevant," where we're exploring the genius of the Gospel and looking for a word, a phrase, or an idea each day to anchor the gospel into your day. Move about your busy life in this busy world. We want to anchor our lives in the gospel. Today's reading is from John chapter 7:40-53. When they heard these words, some other people said, "This is really the prophet." Others said, "This is the Christ." But some said, "Is the Christ to come from Galilee? Has not the Scripture said that the Christ is descended from David and comes from Bethlehem, the city where David was?" So there was division among the people.

Some of them wanted to arrest him, but no one laid hands on him. The officers then went back to the chief priests and Pharisees who said to them, "Why did you not bring him?" The officers answered, "No man ever spoke like this man." The Pharisees answered them, "Are you led astray? Are you also led astray?" Have any of the authorities or of the Pharisees believed in him? But this crowd who do not know the law are accursed. Nicodemus who had gone to him before, and who was one of them said to them, "Does our Lord judge a man without first giving him a hearing and learning what he does?" They replied, "Are you from Galilee too? Search and you will see that no prophet is to rise from Galilee."

So what we see today is this epic battle between the Pharisees and Jesus starting to set up. And the Pharisees won't even look at the facts of the case. They won't even meet with Jesus. They won't consider His words. They won't consider His actions. Nicodemus, believed to be a secret follower of Jesus, says to them, "Hold on a minute, this is not how we operate." But then they accuse him of being biased.

They're basically like, "Okay, well, you must come from Galilee too, and you're biased." But ultimately, they say, "No prophet will rise from Galilee." But what is the word or the phrase or the idea that jumps out at you today? I think for me, the officer that goes back to the Pharisees and said, "I didn't arrest him because no man ever spoke like this man." I think what jumps out at me, we live in a culture full of words, right? There's so many words, like a bazillion more words on the internet every day, thousands and thousands of new books every day, new articles every day.

And the danger is to put these words, just lump them in with all the other words. But like the officer said to the Pharisees, "No man ever spoke like this man." These words are different. They should have a different weight in our lives. We should allow them to guide us in a different way. And so today, let's think about the content we consume. Do we give it all equal weight, or do we give the Word of God a superior weight in our lives? Have an amazing day. Be bold. Be Catholic.