FBP 939 - Faith - It's An Inside Job

You're listening to episode 939 of the Father Bills Podcast.

Welcome back.

This week's episode is entitled, Faith, It's an Inside Job, given on the 22nd Sunday in

ordinary time, 2024.

Faith, It's an Inside Job, given on the 22nd Sunday in ordinary time, 2024.

Good morning, everyone.

Well, this past week, I had the great honor to be able to go with Father Anthony, Deacon

Brett, and Dana Marano, who is our business manager, to San Antonio to a conference called

Amazing Parish Summit.

And during that time, we heard from Father Mike Schmitz, a bunch of other people, just

wise people in the church, helping us.

Lifting us up, teaching us some of the things that we need to be reminded of, like our first

love, don't be, you know, don't be forgetful of our first love, who is God, as ministers.

And other things, things about, you know, organizational stuff.

Wonderful time.

But there was one thing that I did not expect to learn.

And that is, I do not like the middle seat on an airplane.

Am I alone?

No, no.

In fact, I've noticed in the church, every seat here almost is a middle seat, except

for the people on the ends, right?

But it's so different on an airplane.

So here I am, we're getting on at Portland, really early in the morning, and I'm in the

back, that's where I got selected to be seated.

So I'm going back there, and there they are.

There's a woman at the window, and a gentleman at the aisle side, and let's just say he was

a nonplussed that I showed up.

Nonplussed.

So I kind of crawl over him and get into my seat, and I get in there, and I'm trying to

get the buckle, and I'm like, I love flying, and I'm excited because, you know, we're going

to take off.

And sure enough, we take off, and the sky gets bigger, and the ground falls away, and

then she shuts the blind on me.

I'm like, what?

I was looking out the, I was so angry at her.

I thought, you know what?

I would have done, if I was her, I would have at least said, do you mind if I close the

shade so I can just, whatever, fill in the blank?

Oh, no, not at all.

She just goes, shoo.

And it was like that the whole four hours.

Granted, she was, like, working on her phone, or, you know, she pulled out her laptop and

then started watching, and maybe the glare, but then she fell asleep.

So I thought about reaching over.

And I thought, oh, my God.

I'm opening the shade, which I did not do.

We never said boo other than said hello, and that was it.

Now, to my left, as soon as I get in there, the armrests were, you know, I'm in between

armrests, right?

The left armrest, my neighbor has taken.

So he's got both of them.

And let's just say, he's taking up some of my room, too.

So I'm trying to reach my elbow onto the armrest, and I can't make it, really.

So I'm like, dude, come on.

Give me some space.

So as we take off, we move forward.

I'm thinking, okay, I'm going to be, I'm going to, I'm not sure what's going on with the

window.

I'm not sure I'm going to deal with that, but I'm mad at her.

What's her deal?

How rude it is.

And then he falls asleep.

Then she falls asleep, and then his leg then kind of peers over onto my leg.

And next thing we know, I'm like, it's hitting my leg, and it's pushing my leg into my other

leg.

And I'm like, wait a second.

This is the line.

No further.

That's your side.

Oh, I was mad.

I was ticked off.

I was T-O'd in my day.

That's what he'd say, yeah.

I was angry.

I'm like, and you know I'm preparing for a homily.

And I realize I'm learning by doing, because we hear in the scriptures, Jesus made it clear,

from our hearts come evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, et cetera.

And I'm going to have to go to confession, because I have a,

a bunch of those in that list that was in there.

Now, mind you, I chose not to do anything about it, but I was debating.

I'm going to tell her.

I'm going to tell him, get off me.

What?

I didn't.

Because I was still debating, still stewing with evil thoughts.

Three hours of this, and then a miracle happened.

I asked,

God, okay, God, what am I supposed to do with this situation?

And it quickly came.

You are to pray for these people.

And I'm like, okay.

And I'm going to offer it up.

I'm distressed.

This is uncomfortable.

They're rude.

I mean, I have all these excuses.

And who's the one that's upset?

Who's the one that's committing evil in his heart?

Me.

Now, when I was helping out some junior high middle schoolers,

in youth ministry, many years ago,

I talked about how you can sin by thinking.

Your thinking can be sinful.

They're like, what?

I thought we had to do something.

No.

You mean we can sin without having yet done it?

Yes.

Maybe some of you have committed murder.

I think I might have on that flight.

By the way, that's not like if you have a quick thought,

you know, that we all have tendencies or temptations.

Jesus was tempted.

But if we start dwelling on them,

that's when we start becoming,

responsible for what we think.

God wants us to renew our thinking,

to think differently.

But this is what happens.

When we start thinking differently,

because it's from our thinking that we do actions.

This is an inside job.

All of this Christianity thing starts with the inside.

It's from our inside that we judge people.

Look what I did.

See, I'm not the shining star of holiness.

I'm in a need for Jesus, and he helps me.

So what happens when we do this?

Grace comes.

Think of grace as power.

Grace came to me, and from my heart,

and your hearts could be,

instead of all those evil things,

could be beautiful thoughts,

chastity, love, selflessness,

holy speech, humility, wisdom, goodness,

and acts of sacrificial love.

This is how we offer up.

Whenever we're struggling,

when we do these things,

we can offer this up for those

who are also struggling in similar ways.

Now here's the deal.

1.3 billion Catholics in the world cover the planet.

There's 1.3 billion Catholics.

That's actually 18% of the globe.

That's a pretty big number.

But now let's bring in all the other Christians with that.

So it almost doubles that number a little bit more.

Now it's 31% of the world is Christian.

Imagine if we did this, all of us,

started asking for a renewal of our minds,

and we start having these holy thoughts,

these beautiful thoughts,

offering it up when we suffer.

I mean, think about it.

Imagine if I had,

oh, by the way, I should tell you this.

I was wearing my collar.

I was wearing my creasely collar.

It didn't seem to bother them.

They didn't seem to care.

But imagine if I went on the offensive.

That's right.

It'll be on the news.

Priests.

It costs passengers on air.

Airlines.

Because he was in his little seat,

and he was having a pity party.

Yeah, because he got the middle seat.

Sometimes life feels like a middle seat.

See, when the Ten Commandments were given by Moses,

they rejoiced in them.

But they then started getting hardened hearts.

It's like they lost, they forgot their first love.

Eventually, the people of Israel were removed to Babylon.

They were attacked, and they removed most of the people.

And then when they returned,

because they forgot about their ways,

there was a priest named Ezra,

who then read them these precepts,

the Ten Commandments again,

and they rejoiced in them.

See, rules aren't just rules for control.

They actually are going to set us free.

I mean, this is the word murder.

If you don't murder, then you're free from prison.

But if you do murder, prison is your next destiny.

Right?

If we sin, we actually imprison ourselves.

And when we choose good things, we set ourselves free.

John Paul II said,

true freedom is choosing the good.

Like, ah, the reverse of that is doing bad

and shackles us in our sins.

So next time,

next time you find yourself in some similar way,

maybe it's a person that you're mad at,

maybe it's at the intersection of Murray and Mocker Road,

maybe it's at work,

maybe some of you had said you're going on a flight here shortly,

or just returned for one,

or you're going on a trip with family.

You know, I'm the ninth of nine kids.

There was always somebody in the middle seat.

That's what we're called to do.

That's what holy and true religion is,

is when we help the orphan and the widow,

when we treat people with love and kindness,

instead of attacking.

They may not change their ways.

Yes.

Pray for them.

You know what?

You will.

Oh, by the way.

On the way back, middle seat again.

Dana Marano, our business manager,

knew what had happened.

She was in the aisle seat.

And she said, hey, let's swap.

Isn't that nice?

Yeah.

I still hate middle seats, though.

Thank you again for listening to this episode of the Father Bill's Podcast.

I hope you could hear that ending.

It was kind of ironic.

There was a child screaming.

And I'm just thinking, oh, the poor parents.

And pray for that child.

The child may not be quiet,

but hopefully we will be changed ourselves.

And a last epilogue to all of this is that the man that was sitting next to me on my left, right before we landed, there was a big turbulence moment where the plane kind of dropped quite quickly, and he just grabbed for his seat.

And, of course, that was my moment.

I turned to him, and I said, hey there, how's it going?

And I talked to him and found out that he's a nice guy.

He was on his way to do work in the Gulf.

He works on a ship that supplies things to the platforms out on the Gulf and other ships.

And he does this path between Portland and Houston quite frequently.

And I even think I saw him on the way back as well.

But, you know, the nice thing is that was the moment.

That was the moment where I was able to get over my anger and engage him, and then we became human to each other.

Praise God for that, and thank you for listening to this episode.

If you have any questions or any comments you'd like to offer, just go to my website, fatherbill.org, and you can check that out there.

There's a way to email me.

You can go to my Facebook page, where this may be posted, or the Twitter page, various places that I am using, threads.net as well.

In the meantime, may God bless you, and have a great week.

Bye-bye.

Thank you for watching.