Homily for 1 Mar 2018

1 Mar 2018

(School Mass)

So the Prophet Jeremiah says, “Cursed is the man who trusts in human beings.”  And we can understand why he might say that.  After all, sometimes other people are not the best examples for us.  People can do all sorts of not very friendly things, things like: gossip. 

Gossip is not a very nice thing to do; all it does is hurt people.  Nothing good comes from talking about other people behind their back.  So we don’t want to have anything to do with gossip; gossip is a bad example.  And there are other things too, like being prideful.

Being prideful is when somebody thinks they know everything; they know everything and they don’t have to respect other people.  But all that does is hurt people, too.  It makes people have a very hard heart, and so they become uncaring and all prickly.  They end up making more enemies than friends.  So being prideful is also a bad example. 

People can do all sorts of not very friendly things.  Even Christians can do those things. So we can understand why the Prophet Jeremiah says, “Cursed is the man who trusts in human beings”…who tries to be like other human beings. 

Of course, not all people give bad examples to us.  What about the classmate or the friend who notices you’re having a bad day, and they say, “What’s wrong?,” and they try to be a friend to you?  Well, that’s a good example.  Or what about people who notice we’re doing something wrong and they say, “Hey, you shouldn’t be doing that; you’re going to hurt yourself or somebody else.”  Well, that’s a good example, too.  We want to look out for each other and love each other like that.

So other people can be a good example for us.  And the best example we have is Jesus.  He’s God, of course, but…he’s also human.  And the people we want to be like are people who are like Jesus.  Now, nobody’s perfect.  But we want to be like people are trying to be like Jesus: people who are truthful and caring, people who are respectful of others, people who can admit that they are not always right, people who are loving and try to do the right thing.

So, there are people who give us a good example.  And they’re good examples because they’re like Jesus.  So it’s a good question to think about (even for the adults here): Who is a good example for me?  Who in my life is like Jesus?  Those are people you can trust.