We ought to declare ourselves for him in the presence of others

We ought to declare ourselves for him in the presence of others
By Father Alex McAllister SDS


"If anyone declares himself for me in the presence of men,
I will declare myself for him in the presence of my Father in heaven."

What a wonderful promise! Jesus gives his instructions to the Twelve and gives them, and us through them, this wonderful promise that is at the very heart of the Christian faith. That really is all we have to do, just declare ourselves to be openly in favour of Christ and his Gospel of love.

It doesn't seem much, does it? And yet if we look at it in another way it is everything. We declare ourselves openly for Christ and of course we then have to start living accordingly. If we do not, but go back to our old ways we are giving counter-witness and will have disowned him; this will mean that he will disown us, as he says in the second part of his saying.

The plain truth is that if countless numbers of people down the generations had not openly declared themselves for Christ and suffered the consequences of doing so, and quite often this meant torture and death; then we would not be here today. There would be no Church building; there would be no community of Christians. The Church of today is built on the foundations of those who openly declared themselves for Christ in the past.

A famous man of the world was asked if he was a Christian. His answer was, "Yes, but not offensively so." He meant that he did not allow his Christianity to interfere with the company he kept or the life of pleasure.

It is a bit like the Spaniard who when asked by a Priest if he was a Catholic was quite indignant and said of course he was. The Priest then asked him if he went to Sunday Mass. He said, "I'm a Catholic, not a fanatic."

There are three principal ways we can deny Christ. We can deny him by our words, by our silence and by our actions.

Each of us has had moments like Peter when the cock crows; moments when we are deeply shamed by our open denial of Christ. We are put on the spot and we brazenly deny him. This is denial by words.

There are other times when we deny him by silence, by our failure to speak up. We see we are out-numbered and so we say nothing, but that means that a grave injustice is done, the name of Christ is mocked or an opportunity missed.

We also deny him by our actions by living the sort of life that is unworthy of a Christian; by basing our life on lies; by manipulating others; by cruelty; by a life of ease; by pressing down the poor and so on.

We have all heard of the famous book Tom Brown's Schooldays. Tom Brown was very popular at his Public School; he lived with about a dozen other boys in one of the school's dormitories. He was very influential and was the undisputed leader of his gang of friends. One day a new boy came to the school. When it came to bedtime the new boy innocently knelt down by his bed to say his prayers.

Some of the other boys began to snigger, a few others began to laugh and joke, one even threw a shoe at the kneeling boy. That night Tom didn't go to sleep straight away. He lay awake thinking about what had happened to the new boy. He also began to think about his mother and the prayers she had taught him to say each night before going to bed, prayers he had not said since he came to school.

The next night several of the boys were looking forward to poking fun at the new boy. But that night something totally unexpected happened. When the new boy knelt down to say his prayers, Tom knelt down also. The whole atmosphere of the dormitory changed.

Jesus tells us that he will declare himself for those who declare themselves for him. One of the reasons Jesus made this statement is because bearing witness to him or not bearing witness to him can have a profound effect on those around us.

Perhaps the most important area in which this happens is in the home. The deciding factor for Tom Brown was the influence of his mother's example. Because he was so impressed with her faith he in turn gave witness to others and influenced them profoundly.

It has been said that every Christian occupies some kind of pulpit and preaches some kind of sermon every day. This is never more true than of parents in the home. A priest I know has a banner in his room which says: You are the only Gospel some people will ever read. That could be a motto for us all.

In the course of the last twenty-four years since I was ordained I have talked to thousands of young people. Whenever I’ve had the opportunity I’ve asked them about prayer.

I have been very impressed with the answers and even more so by the depth of their prayer-lives. Mostly they pray because they were taught to do so as young children. But I have been equally saddened by the fact the most of them have told me that prayer is practically a taboo subject in the home.

I am talking here about practising Catholic families, families at Church every Sunday and yet to say that you prayed for something, or that during prayer something had occurred to you, would be greeted with waves of embarrassment.

It is easy and it is truly wonderful to talk to young children about prayer. It is more difficult, but much more rewarding, to talk to teenagers and young adults about prayer.

What many Catholics are lacking is the vocabulary to deal with these things and I think that this is one of the reasons why we shy away from talking about anything to do with religion.

But like everything else, the more you do it the easier it gets and the vocabulary comes. This is one reason why we introduced the Question of the Week; it is also why we are now holding discussion groups called Growing Faith.

An important aim of our pastoral strategy is to get people talking about their faith and to feel comfortable doing so. The Growing Faith discussion groups have come to a conclusion for the summer but we will begin again in the autumn; they may be something you might consider joining.

One of the most important things that ought to be discussed by the members of every family in which there are teenagers is how to make that transition from childhood forms of prayer to ones that are more suitable for adult life.

The most helpful thing for our young people would be to hear how their own parents struggled with this transition. They want to know what prayer is, and how you do it, and how it can give meaning and purpose to their lives.

This is something that really needs to be talked about, this is a duty that no true Christian should neglect, this is precisely the sort of thing that Jesus is referring to when he tells us that we ought to declare ourselves for him in the presence of others.

Sunday Homily for June 22, 2008
Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time (A)
SUNDAY READINGS