26th Sunday Ordinary Time
Fr. Mark Gatto
Preached: September 29, 2024
Has anyone ever been a stumbling block to your faith? We hear Jesus warn that anyone who is a stumbling block to one of these little ones who believe in me,… it would be better if a great millstone was hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea. When I hear this it is a little disturbing for me as a priest. Our very position as a priest makes it very possible to be a stumbling block to someone’s faith.
As I look at my own life and who may have been a stumbling block to my faith, it was not atheists or people of other religions or other Christians. I have friends among many of these groups and often they have been an encouragement to my faith. The greatest stumbling block to my faith have been fellow Catholics who lack joy in their faith, who are harsh and rigid towards others.
Years ago when I was Vocation Director in our Diocese, I attended a conference for Vocation Directors and one of the speakers was a priest from the States who was also a Clinical Psychologist. I remember well his one talk about Fiduciary Trust. It is the trust that people in positions of authority have over the people they are supposed to serve. There is a faith or a trust that people have in this person of authority and their responsibility to care for them in a good way.
Priests are in a position of fiduciary trust, so are doctors, police officers, teachers, and so on, they are all people in a position of service which gives them some authority over others. People place their trust in them. The basic thing of Fiduciary Trust is simply “Do no harm.” Parents are also in a position of fiduciary trust with their children. First responsibility of a parent with their children is simply to do no harm.
I would say that also we who are Christians are in a position of fiduciary trust in sharing our faith. Do no harm. We Christians need to watch that we do not become stumbling blocks to the faith of others in the way we live and share our faith.
I recently saw a quote where someone said, “At the end of days I’d rather be accountable for who I included than who I excluded.” In the gospel we just heard, the disciples want to exclude some group who are casting out demons in Jesus’ name, but who are not part of their group. Jesus instructs them not to exclude them. We human beings so often want to exclude certain people, those who think or act differently than us, or people who are not part of our group. But, if someone is bringing goodness, love, truth into our world then we include them, not exclude.
My father only gave me one piece of advice when I was a seminarian on the way to becoming a priest, “be kind to the people.” We never discussed that, but I wondered after if he had told me that because he had been hurt by some priest during his life.
Aldous Huxley once said. “It is a little embarrassing after 45 years of research and study, that the best advice that I can give to people is to be a little kinder to each other.”
We Christians can do much harm when we live our faith and proclaim the gospel in a way that lacks kindness. I see on-line and in life, some Christians who are so ready to exclude others, so ready to condemn others.
Christians can be so ready to quote Scripture to attack certain people or groups. Often today it is LGBQ people. Yet, the same people using Scripture to condemn such groups, how often do you hear them using Scripture to criticize the rich? Yet, listen to what is said in the Letter of James in our second reading today. “Come now, you rich people, weep and wail for the miseries that are coming to you.” “Your gold and silver are rusted, and their rust will be evidence against you.” When is the last time you heard a Christian criticize the rich using such passages, which are very common in the Bible?
Each of us Christians need to examine our conscience honestly, starting with myself as a priest, are we a stumbling block to the faith of others? Be sure that we include more than exclude. That we do not use Scripture to condemn certain vulnerable groups and ignore Scripture when it challenges me. Do no harm. The most basic suggestion to insure that you will not be a stumbling block to the faith of others. Be kind!
