It is very obvious that Our Lord speaks to the two big issues in our state and country today.

One of our moral theology professors in seminary, Fr. Jerome Young, a Benedictine monk, once quite startlingly and honestly told us that in our world today, the 10 Commandments have been basically reduced, boiled down to two commandments. It is a sobering reality:

The Family Is Our Connection To God

The start of the first book of the Bible, the Book of Genesis, always reminds us that it was God who created man. Then God made woman as a partner for man.

When Adam sees the woman he says, “This one, at last, is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this one shall be called ‘woman.’” Logically, God desires that man and woman should become one. They are made complementary, made suitable to each other. In this union of God’s love, the Sacrament of Marriage, that man and woman work together to bring their family to Heaven.

Today, Jesus speaks to us, His disciples, of avoiding scandal, which causes “the little ones who believe in Him,” to sin.

We often think that scandal is something of which we are not capable; scandal seems to be something outside of us, those “big, public sins” which appear on TV news.

Jesus speaks to His disciples, you and me, who are loved by Him. Who are “the little ones who believe in Him”? They are our brothers and sisters who are “smaller” than we are, whose faith in Jesus is developing.

“Whoever receives one child such as this in my name, receives me; and whoever receives me, receives not me but the One who sent me.”

This is one great example of what our retired Bishop Thomas Olmsted called Catholics in the Public Square, Christ Himself teaches us on critically-important moral issues in our modern times. Bishop writes very clearly:

We very warmly welcome Bishop John Dolan this weekend to Blessed Sacrament Parish for the official Order of Pastoral Installation.

Chapter 8 is the halfway-point of St. Mark’s very short Gospel and it is very theological.

The Scripture we hear and read today is called The Confession of St. Peter and is the turning point of Christ’s ministry. Jesus asks Peter and also asks us personally: “But who do you say that I am?”

These are the only words Jesus says to us today. We have to pay special attention. What Jesus says is important. But he does other things as well. Let’s role play a little with this story. Imagine if someone came up to you, face to face, then poked their fingers in your ears and put spit on your tongue and groaned up to Heaven and said: “Be opened.”