#What people remember

[momentsbeforemass]

How you live your life

(By request, my homily from Sunday)

I’d like to talk with you today about evangelism.

For those of you who immediately turned off when I said the “e” word, I understand why you did. If you’ve been around the Church for any length of time, you’ve run into an evangelism program. Most of the ones that I’ve seen are pretty off-putting.

Maybe they’re super salesy. Or they make Church sound like multi-level marketing. And even if they don’t have an “ick” factor to them, their focus is usually all about having the right answers and saying the right things.

For those of us who are introverted, and for those of us who don’t always have the right answers, that’s intimidating.

And even if you are the most outgoing person in the world, and you always have the right answer, that focus is – well – a little off.

Because that’s not how it works. The secret to evangelism is in today’s second reading (1 Timothy 6:11). Where Paul tells his protégé, Timothy, to “pursue righteousness, devotion, love, patience, and gentleness.”

What does Paul’s advice for how Timothy should live his life have to do with evangelism? Everything, as it turns out.

Because how you live your life is sending a message to everyone around you, even if they don’t know you. More than having the right answers. More than saying the right things. What people really pay attention to is how you live your life.

I don’t mean how much you make, where you live, what car you drive, what clothes you wear, whether you’re single or married, if you’ve got kids, or any of that stuff.

What I mean is how do you and I respond to adversity? How do we treat others? How do we make them feel? How consistent are we?

That is how you live your life. And that is what people remember about you.

It really doesn’t matter what you and I say – if we haven’t sorted out how to live our lives.

You and I can come to Mass every Sunday, get here early to pray the Rosary, help out with the street ministry, keep a Holy Hour of Adoration every week, cover the car in Catholic bumper stickers, and quote the Bible. But if we’re complaining about our spouse/SO, trash talking our friends behind their backs, playing office politics, posting angry, hateful stuff on social media, and treating people like things?

Our everyday example will override anything you and I do or say here at Church.

Because evangelism isn’t what you do in Church. Evangelism is how you live your life after I say, “the Mass is ended, go in peace.”

You’ve seen the reports, about how the fastest growing religious group is the “nones.” People with no religious affiliation. They’re a lot like the people in the Gospel (Luke 9:31), the ones who wouldn’t pay attention even if someone came back from the dead. You know what that means?

They’re never going to hear a homily. But they didn’t stop listening.

What they are going to hear is what you say about your neighbor behind her back. What they are going to hear is how I treat the clerk at the store.

They’re never going to see us praying. But they didn’t stop watching.

What they are going to see is the cruel and degrading stuff we post on social media about people and issues we disagree with. What they are going to see is me, a guy in a collar, cutting someone off in traffic.

They’re not reading their Bibles. But they didn’t stop reading.

What they are reading is your life and my life.

Which is why how we live our lives is so important. It’s the only message that will ever get through to the people who need it the most.

Which means what?

First, don’t worry about what they’re doing or what they’re saying. If they’re trash talking the Church. Whether they’re sinning in a way you and I can’t stand, or in a way that we understand all too well (because we’re doing it too), it doesn’t really matter.

Because our job is the be the light of the world. Not to add to the darkness by railing against them, letting them know how bad they are, how wrong they are, how right we are.

But to light it up, By living our faith with the joy that is your birthright as a Catholic.

So how do you and I do that?

Begin your day with God. By thanking God for all that He has given you. Not generically, name each thing you’re thankful for. No matter how big or small. Make a list of at least 10 things. Because it’s impossible for us to not be joyful when we’re grateful.

Don’t waste your time with God dumping that list of grievances that all of us have on Him.

Don’t rehash everything that’s gone wrong. It won’t do you any good and God already knows about all of it. Even the stuff you and I don’t like to think about. Instead, thank Him for bringing you through it, for never abandoning you even in the very worst parts, even when you couldn’t feel Him there.  

Don’t try to pray away the difficult people in your life. Instead thank God that He’s already put everything in place to handle them – whether that’s by moving them away from you or by giving you the grace to deal with them.

Then trust God. Actually trust God. With all of that. And fill your heart with the joy that comes only from trusting Him.

Take that joy – the joy that God cannot wait to fill you with - and let it overflow into every part of your life.

Don’t treat someone the way they deserve to be treated. Stay in the joy that God has given you, and treat them like someone Jesus died to save. Because He did.

Be the one who breaks up someone’s bad day with a kind word. Even if you don’t know they’re having a bad day, give them that kind word anyway. A lot of us are very good at hiding when we’re hurting.

Bring that joy with you wherever God sends you, to whomever God sends you.

Even when it would be easier to be upset. Even when it feels like you’ve got every right to be angry. Or depressed.

Be the light of the world. Be who God made you to be. By sharing that joy of God with everyone who’s part of your day. Whether they deserve it or not.

Do it consistently and you will be surprised at who responds.

As Madeleine L’Engle puts it, “We draw people to Christ not by loudly discrediting what they believe, by telling them how wrong they are and how right we are, but by showing them a light that is so lovely that they want with all their hearts to know the source of it.”

Sunday’s Readings

[captainjonnitkessler]

Every time I advocate for voting people are like "no you shouldn't vote! Read this literature, it'll totally change the way you view voting!" And every single time it's the same fucking "you shouldn't vote because both parties are exactly the same so it won't make a difference who wins" bullshit wrapped up in some fancy language

[wolfythewitch]

i have so much rage in me one day i think i will explode. i dont think i know how to forgive as much as i know how to forget

[buggachat]

something so fucked up about Chat Noir’s whole deal is that he is in a lot of ways Adrien playing a character. Like Adrien picked up his miraculous and was told he’d be a superhero so he was like “ok, time to act like a superhero!” and he lets himself have fun w it and play up the role and let loose and kind of just allow himself to be silly and goofy and have fun and for once in his life not care about performing Perfection™.

But. But none of the other characters KNOW THAT. So everyone just sees Chat Noir and is like “look at this guy’s ego. He’s so full of himself. Surely it’d be fair to knock him down a few pegs” without being aware of how few pegs he actually HAS. He’s like the “insecure character who overcompensates in ego” trope except he’s really not doing it unironically, he’s just having a fun LARP pretending to have self worth in his off-hours but nobody else is on the same page about it being a game and he refuses to tell them. He just dramatically pouts about it and lets them laugh and pretends like he’s not internalizing it and it is almost 3 am and my brain forced me to write this instead of sleeping I’m gonna take a melatonin

[bloodbending]

someone please help me find that quote about how someone was overwhelmed with the weight of the world and their problems when they were physically alone, but that weight felt like nothing in the presence of a friend and good conversation

[aniseandspearmint]

I am curious, bc I just ran across one of those, 'everyone remembers where they were when 9/11 happened!' things so-

This isn't meant to be a commentary on the event, just whether or not you remember where you were/what you were doing when the news hit.

As an example, I was home sick, doing dishes, when mom yelled for me to get in the living room RIGHT NOW.

[corviiids]

ive now watched the movie and it turns out that's his name

[tiktaalic]

one of my beloved friends (very autism) was in.. not denial but ignorance sounds mean. but that abt themself last time you brought up the raads r test so i sent it to the gc (full of autism) and they were like psh. fake test no one could get below 100. they know now but i think about it so much

The thing is. When you take the autism test. And you see your score is in the 100 to 160 range. You think. Oh this is probably the middle? Middle autism. Tinge of autism. Your relatives calling you bright but shy autism. Just a whiff of autism. And then you see the score ranges. And you go. This test is lying to me there is absolutely no way the majority of people score under 65. The 65 number is such a low cutoff and so many of these experiences are clearly universal a score under 65 is something they made up in a lab. People who score under 65 are obviously scoring just under that mark from 59 to 64 and they’re also obviously lying or purposely misrepresenting their experiences as less severe than they are. And then you find out there are real people who get a 20 or 30 or 7 on it. And you go. Ah

[strawberry-crocodile]

Sometimes people get their start in fandom with something like, idk, the MCU or light action shows like Supernatural or children's fantasy like Warriors (this last example said with love), where the writing is an inconsistent mess, characterization can change on a dime, there's no themes stronger than like "family" or "stop the bad guy from changing our way of life". And their fandom experience is taking the hints of interesting ideas presented and dropped and spinning them into something interesting, or just fluffy and fun, and then discarding the rest.

And then these people come to a piece of art that like. Actually has themes and good writing and a coherent vision, but they're still trained on The Giant Trash Heap That Must Be Sorted Through, so they start their routine of excising fun yaoi moments and throwing the rest in the trash, except now the rest is like. A professionally made passion project by a group of skilled writers with a hundred years writing experience between them, and this fan is writing the same coffee shop AUs as ever. And it makes something that feels same-y and fandom out of something unique and well-made and, well, interesting.

And like. That's their prerogative, more power to them, but it makes me wanna pull my hair out to talk to these people about a piece of media I actually care about beyond that Trash Heap level.

And if you're someone whose only fandom experience has been Trash Sorting and you're running into people arguing with you abt their favorite piece of media, give them a second thought I guess?

[marisatomay]

blah blah blah aging tumblr population etc etc if you are ever visiting a family that just had a baby, and you know that they have other small children, bring a little something for each of the other kids. it doesn’t have to be anything fancy but, even the most charitable, well-behaved child starts feeling left out and lonely after the nth visitor brings gifts and attention for their parents and new sibling and, either isn’t there for them at all or the only engage with them about their baby sibling, especially since their parents have probably been completely consumed with the new baby. make their day and they will remember that bit of kindness and attention from you forever.

[ominouspuff]

Fwoom (intimidatingly)

[sprucewoodmpreg]

[thatrandomblogsays]

RIP Annabeth, I just know Percy sacrificing himself for you, after knowing you for a week, after telling you that you’ve done more for him this week than his father ever has, is permanently altering the brain chemistry of your avoidant attachment self

[inkskinned]

so one of the things that's so horrifying about birth control is that you have to, like, navigate this incredibly personal choice about your body and yet also face the epitome of misogyny. like, someone in the comments will say it wasn't that bad for me, and you'll be utterly silenced. like, everyone treats birth control like something that's super dirty. like, you have no fucking information or control over this thing because certain powerful people find it icky.

first it was the oral contraceptives. you went on those young, mostly for reasons unrelated to birth control - even your dermatologist suggested them to control your acne. the list of side effects was longer than your arm, and you just stared at it, horrified.

it made you so mentally ill, but you just heard that this was adulthood. that, yes, there are of course side effects, what did you expect. one day you looked up yasmin makes me depressed because surely this was far too intense, and you discovered that over 12,000 lawsuits had been successfully filed against the brand. it remains commonly prescribed on the open market. you switched brands a few times before oral contraceptives stopped being in any way effective. your doctor just, like, shrugged and said you could try a different brand again.

and the thing is that you're a feminist. you know from your own experience that birth control can be lifesaving, and that even when used for birth control - it is necessary healthcare. you have seen it save so many people from such bad situations, yourself included. it is critical that any person has access to birth control, and you would never suggest that we just get rid of all of it.

you were a little skeeved out by the implant (heard too many bad stories about it) and figured - okay, iud. it was some of the worst pain you've ever fucking experienced, and you did it with a small number of tylenol in your system (3), like you were getting your bikini line waxed instead of something practically sewn into your body.

and what's wild is that because sometimes it isn't a painful insertion process, it is vanishingly rare to find a doctor that will actually numb the area. while your doctor was talking to you about which brand to choose, you were thinking about the other ways you've been injured in your life. you thought about how you had a suspicious mole frozen off - something so small and easy - and how they'd numbed a huge area. you thought about when you broke your wrist and didn't actually notice, because you'd thought it was a sprain.

your understanding of pain is that how the human body responds to injury doesn't always relate to the actual pain tolerance of the person - it's more about how lucky that person is physically. maybe they broke it in a perfect way. maybe they happened to get hurt in a place without a lot of nerve endings. some people can handle a broken femur but crumble under a sore tooth. there's no true way to predict how "much" something actually hurts.

in no other situation would it be appropriate for doctors to ignore pain. just because someone can break their wrist and not feel it doesn't mean no one should receive pain meds for a broken wrist. it just means that particular person was lucky about it. it should not define treatment.

in the comments of videos about IUDs, literally thousands of people report agony. blinding, nauseating, soul-crushing agony. they say things like i had 2 kids and this was the worst thing i ever experienced or i literally have a tattoo on my ribs and it felt like a tickle. this thing almost killed me or would rather run into traffic than ever feel that again.

so it's either true that every single person who reports severe pain is exaggerating. or it's true that it's far more likely you will experience pain, rather than "just a pinch." and yet - there's nothing fucking been done about it. it kind of feels like a shrug is layered on top of everything - since technically it's elective, isn't it kind of your fault for agreeing to select it? stop being fearmongering. stop being defensive.

you fucking needed yours. you are almost weirdly protective of it. yours was so important for your physical and mental health. it helped you off hormonal birth control and even started helping some of your symptoms. it still fucking hurt for no fucking reason.

once while recovering from surgery, they offered you like 15 days of vicodin. you only took 2 of them. you've been offered oxy for tonsillitis. you turned down opioids while recovering from your wisdom tooth extraction. everything else has the option. you fucking drove yourself home after it, shocked and quietly weeping, feeling like something very bad had just happened. the nurse that held your hand during the experience looked down at you, tears in her eyes, and said - i know. this is cruelty in action.

and it's fucked up because the conversation is never just "hey, so the way we are doing this is fucking barbaric and doctors should be required to offer serious pain meds" - it's usually something around the lines of "well, it didn't kill you, did it?"

you just found out that removing that little bitch will hurt just as bad. a little pinch like how oral contraceptives have "some" serious symptoms. like your life and pain are expendable or not really important. like maybe we are all hysterical about it?

hysteria comes from the latin word for uterus, which is great!

you stand here at a crossroads. like - this thing is so important. did they really have to make it so fucking dangerous. and why is it that if you make a complaint, you're told - i didn't even want you to have this in the first place. we're told be careful what you wish for. we're told that it's our fault for wanting something so illict; we could simply choose not to need medication. that maybe if we don't like the scraps, we should get ready to starve.

we have been saying for so long - "i'm not asking you to remove the option, i'm asking you to reconsider the risk." this entire time we hear: well, this is what you wanted, isn't it?

[sirenetica]

Get a load of these dudes!

+ some silly romance-y stuff

[the-woman-upstairs]

What’s extra funny about Nimona getting an Oscar nom instead of Disney’s Wish is that the former does a far more masterful job of capturing the “storybook” 2-D style with its stylized 3-D animation than the latter, which was one of its big marketing hooks.