Today's Gospel

Your Truth Gap

Welcome back to Radical and Relevant. I love having this time with you each day to reflect on the gospel and to allow the gospel to penetrate our sometimes hard hearts to find new places in our hearts to take root and to live. Today's reading is from the Gospel of John, chapter 10, verses 22 through 30. It was the feast of the dedication at Jerusalem. It was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple in the portico of Solomon. So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, "How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly." And Jesus answered them, "I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness to me. But you do not believe because you do not belong to my sheep. My sheep hear my voice and I know them. And they follow me and I give them eternal life. And they shall never perish and no one shall snatch them out of my hands. My father, who has given them to me, is greater than all and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hands. I and the Father are one."

So again today, the people coming to Jesus and they're like, "Well, tell us plainly." And Jesus is saying, "I've already told you plainly and you didn't believe me." And it's interesting because when people tell us things, regular people, human beings, words are easy, right? It's easy to say this, it's easy to say that, but their actions are the truth. Their actions are the truth. Someone can tell you something over and over and over again but if they do something that's completely opposed to that, then their actions are the truth. And with Jesus, both his words and his actions are the truth. And he's speaking this truth to them. He's demonstrating this truth with abundant clarity. They've never seen anything like the things that Jesus is showing them.

And yet they keep having these doubts, they keep having these questions, they keep pressing him, they keep asking him to say it in a different way. And of course, much of it is a trap. Much of it is a trap. And so the question I ask myself today is, okay, if Jesus' words are truth and Jesus' actions are truth and there's complete alignment between his words and his actions, what is the alignment like between my words and my actions? And of course, there's a gap, right, because I'm human and I make mistakes and I'm forgetful and I'm selfish and I'm all these sorts of things. So there's a gap between my words and my actions. And God is constantly encouraging me to close that gap, to get alignment between my words and my actions, between what I say I will do and what I actually do. And then, of course, he's working on the things I actually say as well, right? He's trying to get the things that I say to be in alignment with his truth, with the gospel.

And so we're constantly trying to close this gap, all of us, every single one of us. But it requires effort. It requires intentionality. It requires awareness to say, "yes, okay, I fall short every day." There is a gap. Let's wake up again tomorrow and work on closing that gap. Have a great day. Remember, Be Bold, Be Catholic.