Christians are to be the people who are odd because of Jesus. Christians are to be the people who have saints on their calendars and beads in their pockets. Christians are to be the people who have Bibles on their coffee tables instead of coasters, and who never make plans for Sundays that don’t include Mass. Christians are to be the people who know the truth that makes them odd even while it makes them free.

The devil is very happy for people to be as wealthy, powerful, and smart as they want to be. He doesn’t know any of their names. He doesn’t have to. They are no danger to him. If the devil knows who you are, that can only be because Jesus is alive in you, because you have invited Him, because you have received Him in His fullness at every Mass.

8 August 2025  Matthew 16:24-28 “For whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.”...

Peter was declining to do the one thing the Church was created to do in the first place. “Don’t attack hell. We can feed people instead, we can heal people instead, we can cast out evil spirits and make people happy instead. People will love us for that. People will follow us for that.”

God isn’t thinking about waiting another generation for people to be ready to hear His voice. He wants us to pay attention now, and He wants us to start with the stuff we are looking at that is bad for us. Look at Me instead. Pay attention to Me.

When everyone was safe in the boat, they worshipped Him: “Truly You are the Son of God!” (Matthew 14:33). Easy to say when you’re safe in the boat. Say that with your feet on the water. That’s where the power is.

People started to think that the power to heal, the power to feed wasn’t Jesus’ power, but their own. They taught their children the same, and hung a millstone around their own necks and in the 20th century they plunged into an ocean of blood. The power to heal became the power to kill – kill even the very, very young. The power to feed became the power to intoxicate, and kill millions more.

It doesn’t matter if you are completely selfish with your material possessions , or give them all away to the less fortunate. It doesn’t matter if you kill other people, take their stuff, and make it your stuff. If there is no life after death, who cares?

Herod didn’t fear the people. He didn’t fear John the Baptist. He feared his wife and his guests.

But it isn’t Christian people who save. It isn’t the Church that saves. The Church and Christian people are not “the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” Jesus does. Jesus is. What do you say about Him? Jesus is the one that matters.