Faith with works, and works of faith (Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time. Cycle B)

I like to remember, time to time, that nice passage from Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson on a camping trip. As they lay sleeping one night, Holmes woke Watson and said, “Watson, look up into the sky and tell me what you see.” Watson said, “I see millions of stars.” Holmes asked, “And what does that tell you?” Watson replied, “Astronomically, it tells me that there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets. Theologically, it tells me that God is great and that we are small and insignificant. Meteorologically, it tells me that we will have a beautiful day tomorrow. And what does it tell you?” Holmes answered, “Someone stole our tent.” Well, some Catholics are great at speculative knowledge but when it comes to its implication for practical living we score zero. Such is Peter in today’s gospel. What we have in this passage is Jesus doing a kind test, examining his disciples to see whether they have got the point and are ready to follow his master in pain and suffering. Peter openly disagrees with Jesus and even though he scored 100% in the doctrinal part of the exam, he shows by his actions that, in fact, he knows nothing of the practical implications of what he had said. We are very much like Peter, paying sometimes too much attention to external forms or correctness and too little attention to practical life correctness. In the parable of the Last Judgment, Jesus reveals that we are judged more by how we have practiced the faith than by how we have believed. Of course, both are important, our faith is the compass that guides us on the road, the GPS, but the way we practice our faith has the priority. In our conversation with him this morning let us ask the Lord to make us solid as the rock in our profession of the true faith, but even more so in our practical commitment to the demands of the faith in our daily lives. May we be able to be, as the Holy Father Francis tells us so many times, "an outgoing Church", that we will not be looking constantly at our navel, or at the mirror, but looking at others and looking for how to serve them better • AE