BECOME A LIVING GOSPEL

         

 A saint is a living Gospel for all to read.  The saint preaches and teaches by example.  He or she can say, with the same genuine humility as St. Paul to the Philippians, “Keep on doing what you have learned and received and heard and seen in me.  Then the God of peace will be with you.”  Perhaps it is a cliché but nonetheless true – you are the only Bible that some people will read.  They may not take up the New Testament in their hands, but by your good example they will learn its message and see what it offers for their lives. They witness the Word active in you, and then they want to check it out for themselves.  Countless numbers of people have come to the knowledge of Christ, and a personal relationship with him, through the living witness of their spouse, relative, friend, co-worker – and even their enemy. 

          Yes, even their enemy.  St. Paul is a premier example.  He writes in his Letter to the Galatians, “For you heard of my former way of life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it…”  According to the Acts of the Apostles, Paul – known by his Jewish name Saul – was with those who stoned the Church’s first martyr, St. Stephen, guarding their cloaks while they committed the murderous deed.  The heroic witness of Stephen and other persecuted Christians must have affected Paul, for when Jesus confronted him on the road to Damascus, where he planned to arrest the followers of The Way, Paul understood immediately what he meant when Jesus said to him: “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?”  By their witness the martyrs had sowed the seed of change in the heart of Saul, and gained a brother in place of an enemy.

          A powerful twentieth century example is that of Herbert Kappler, the head of the Gestapo in Rome in 1943 when the German Army took control of the city.  A low-level Vatican official, Msgr. Hugh O’Flaherty, became his nemesis by organizing an underground network which hid some 4,000 escaped Allied prisoners and Jews in apartments, on farms and in convents.  Kappler knew of his doings but could not catch him outside of Vatican City territory, which was neutral, and his attempts to assassinate him inside the territory were unsuccessful. The monsignor was nicknamed “The Scarlet Pimpernel of the Vatican” for his many disguises when he snuck around Rome, after an 18^th century British royal who used imaginative disguises to smuggle nobles out of France during the Reign of Terror.   After the war the Gestapo major was put in prison for war crimes.  His only visitor during a long internment was the gruffy Msgr. O’Flaherty!  In 1959 Kappler professed the Catholic faith and was baptized by him.  His hard heart was opened to the message of the Gospels by the Christian courage, compassion and forgiveness he witnessed in his former enemy. 

          As a young man I realized that Christ actually had the power to change my life when I saw how other college students were living the gospel in their lives.  They were not perfect, and did not pretend to be, but they were confident in their faith and organized their lives around it.  I had read parts of the Bible and went to church on Sundays, but faith became a vital part of my life only when I saw it lived by my new friends.  So many of the people around you will not realize the greatness and goodness of God until they see how you have been blessed by Him.  They will not open a Bible, but they will notice you.  The Acts of the Apostles notes that the members of the Sanhedrin, the ruling religious body in Jerusalem, “Observing the boldness of Peter and John and perceiving them to be uneducated, ordinary men, they were amazed, and they recognized them as the companions of Jesus.”  By the grace of God, may we, ordinary men and women, live our lives in a way that reflects our companionship with Jesus, so that we become a Gospel for others to read.

FATHER SCOTT