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This Sunday, the Priest talked about the 70 Disciples.

He told us how we are all called to spread the Good News. He told us how we don’t have to be Great with Words. He told us that we don’t have to go and Preach to others. He told us that the best way to bring others to the Gospel, to God is…OURSELVES!

If we live our Faith, if we are our Faith, what better Testimony than that? What better Persuader? What more Proof could anyone need?

Sadly, one of the greatest PROOFS that we have and do fail at this is Gandhi’s great quote:

I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.

I say great, because he pointed out our greatest Hypocrisy. We do not, NOT, practice what we Preach.

Now, I am not even getting into the whole thing that the Church is filled with hypocrites. As I have said before and I will repeat again, the Church is filled with Flawed, Sinful, Selfish, Humans. That Simple. We are not called to follow the example of one of these Humans. We are called to follow the ONLY Perfect example. The Church tells us to Imitate, to Follow, to be Disciples of CHRIST! The Church does not say, follow Fr. So and So. Be like Fr. So and So. We can look at Fr. So and So and admire and respect his qualities and imitate those. But when we see wrong, we know, we know in our Hearts that it is wrong and thus cannot use that as an excuse for us to do wrong. We cannot say, “Well HE did it, and he’s a man of God.” Come on now! We know better.

As my Mamá Lola used to always say, “Cuando señalas con un dedo, cuatro te señalan a ti.” When you point with one finger, four point back at you. Okay, well maybe it’s more like 3 since the thumb isn’t really pointing back at you, but you know what she meant.

When I say that we do not Practice what we Preach, I mean we as in YOU and I!

We can try and cloak ourselves in others’ hypocrisies. Try and deviate attention to our flaws by pointing out others’ flaws. But the simple fact is that we are responsible for ourselves and our actions.

We know what we are Commanded to do:

You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments (Matthew 22:37-40).

These are not God’s Suggestions, as Fr. Mario constantly reminds us, these are God’s COMMANDMENTS.

We know what we have to do. Now, If we go out there and do this. If we hold ourselves accountable. If we are completely responsible for our actions, behaviours, words. If we practice what we are Commanded.

Then, and only then, will we be true Catholic Christians.

Then, we will live up to what we are called to do. Then, we will be True Disciples of Christ and bring the Good News to others by simply obeying our Commandments.

To quote Gandhi again: