Three things about today’s Gospel:  First, I often think that it had to be one of the saddest days in the life of Jesus, when he went back to his own native village or town, Nazareth, went into the synagogue (where I am sure he had been from when he was a young child); and, first of all, they were admiring his words and then they all turned against him, and actually wanted to kill him. 

Last week, Fr. Dibble told us very persuasively about how Jesus must have often laughed. We also know from the scriptures that he cried and I imagine that, on that night, he must have cried bitterly at the memory of his townspeople turning him away, his neighbors, his friends, the people he had grown up with. He was no longer welcome among them.

If ever at any time in your life or at this time in your life you feel misunderstood or alone, if your friends have let you down, if you feel betrayed or feel that someone has broken your trust, Jesus knows exactly how you feel.  He’s been there and He is someone you can turn to in your hour of need.

Secondly, Jesus comes across in today’s Gospel as a prophet, just like Jeremiah in the first reading.  Now prophets were not people who told the future, not in the bible.  Prophets were people who told the truth, often a truth that nobody wanted to hear.  They needed to hear it but they didn’t want to hear it.  And, the truth that Jesus told was that the kingdom of God was not only meant for Jewish people but also for everybody else and the townspeople were just not ready to receive that message so they turned against him.  And that’s the way the prophets are in the bible. They tell truths, whole truths, that nobody wants to hear.  The prophets were never moderates, never balanced, never nice, never people pleasers, never popular.  Hence, they were persecuted and reviled.  You probably know some people like that:  people who always tell the truth even at the cost of losing friends, people who are not afraid to stand up and speak unpopular truths. 

For example, when a war breaks out and the nation is carried away by patriotic fervor the prophet is liable to stand up and say, “War is crazy, it’s almost always wrong.”  Or when we’re all geared up for vengeance against some wrong that has been done against us the prophet will stand up and say, “Vengeance is crazy;  the only way forward is through dialog and forgiveness.”  Or when we’re all carried away by wanting to accumulate this world’s goods the prophet is liable to stand up and say, “That’s crazy. The only way forward is to learn to give things away.”  We need the prophets, they tell us the truth.

We need them in the Church too so that they can keep the Church on the right path.  Back in the 1940’s and 50’s there was a group of thinkers, of writers, of theologians, mostly in Europe, and they wrote many books on the subject “The Church needs to change.”  That was a very unwelcomed message to the official Church at the time so they were treated very badly. They were silenced.  One of them whom I personally knew was a French Jesuit called Henri De Lubac.  He was silenced. He was forbidden to teach in the seminary. He was forbidden to write one word about Catholic or Christian theology.  So, what did he do?  He became an expert on Buddhism and wrote many books about Buddhism.  Then, along came the Second Vatican Council, 1962-65, where most of these men were invited as experts to the Council and their teachings became the teaching of the Catholic Church, and Henri De Lubac was made a Cardinal.  It was as if the Church was saying “Oops, sorry, you were right all along.” 

Now in our day we have people like Fr. Roy Bourgeois and others who argue that women should be ordained to the ministry in the Catholic Church and they provide, for me, what are very persuasive arguments but they’re treated as though they were the worst people in the world.

You know I have a book in my room and the title of it is, When the Pope Says I’m Sorry, and its all quotations from John Paul II apologizing for the times that his predecessors were wrong.  I imagine there will be a book written in some generation’s time apologizing for the wrongs done to the likes of Fr. Roy Bourgeois. “Oops, sorry.” 

Having said all that, I don’t think I have the makings of a prophet myself.  I kind of like to be liked and the prophet doesn’t care whether you like them or not.  But I do like to say, I think it is in Matthew’s Gospel, “If you give a cup of water to a Prophet you will receive a Prophet’s reward.”  I have been fortunate enough to live with some people that I would describe as Prophets and I have furnished them with gallons of water.  And, being Irish, I’ve actually plied them with something stronger as well.  I think I anticipate quite a fancy reward.

Now currently it’s all about truth telling. How do we make this real for our daily lives, to tell the truth even if it costs, even if it hurts?  Are you the kind of person who always tells the truth?  Can your friends count on you always to tell the truth?  This is Catholic Schools Week, beginning today, so I went into our Eighth Grade and I asked them to write a few things for me about telling the truth and they are a very powerful class.  This is just a small selection of what they had to say about  "Why is it wrong to tell lies?"

“Telling lies is wrong because it doesn’t just hurt the person you are telling the lies to; it hurts yourself.”

“When you tell a lie and the person finds out they won’t trust you any more.  They might not want to be your friend.”

“Lying doesn’t usually solve problems, it could end one but start another.”  (Couldn’t be put much better than that.)

A lot of the kids felt that once you start telling lies it’s awful hard to stop.  “It is so hard to stop lying because when it happens once lying becomes a habit and you begin to tell lies to everyone even when you don’t need to.”

“It’s hard to stop lying because it’s like a drug.  Sometimes it’s addicting until you lose something so important to you that you have to stop lying.”

And then we consider the question that many of the moral theologians are not sure what’s the correct answer:  “Is it ever alright to tell a half truth?”  So, naturally, the kids came down on both sides.  Here is one who gives the hard line:  “If you are going to tell a friend a truth that you know is going to hurt them I would just tell them the complete and honest truth became in the long run that will hurt them least.  And, also, knowing the real truth later on in life hurts so much more than the small hurt back then, if you told them the full and honest truth to start with.”

But another kid in the class disagreed:  “I think partial truths are okay.  If you tell your mother that you are at a friend’s house it is technically the truth, even if you are there only for a minute and then you went to a party.  Your mother didn’t ask you if you went to a party, so you don’t need to provide that answer.”  If I didn’t know better I’d think that kid was educated by the Jesuits.

And finally, a little story that one of the kids told which I think can sum it all up for us all:  “One time in 5th grade I cheated on a test.  I had not studied and I was afraid that my parents would be mad at me if I got a bad grade.  Afterwards I felt really guilty and I couldn’t sleep at all.  Crying, I finally went out and told my parents.  They were mad but they said they understood and that they were proud of me for telling the truth even though it was hard.  I had to go tell my teacher.  She was upset with me but she said that it said a lot about my character that I felt bad and came clean.  She still gave me a zero but I didn’t feel bad and it made me study harder for the rest of the tests.”  . . . and maybe for the rest of that kid’s life.

So, today’s scripture is all about truth telling, and how important it is to tell the truth.  The Prophets always did, and do.  Jesus always did even though it cost him dearly and we would do well to follow his example because he is the Son of God and the Spanish say, “Truth is God’s Daughter.”