Your beliefs matter. If you don’t believe in a cause, you won’t do anything to further it. If you don’t believe in yourself, you’ll likely not accomplish great things.  “Whether you think you can or whether you think you can’t, you’re right.” ~ Henry Ford

Mass Readings Audio

http://ccc.usccb.org/cccradio/NABPodcasts/18_08_05.mp3

Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time – August 5, 2018

Welcome to the nineteenth episode of By Your Life. Thank you for joining me. If you haven’t already, please subscribe on the right side of the page so I can send you notifications when each new episode is posted. And please forward to a friend you think would benefit from By Your Life.

My goal is to inspire, empower, support, challenge, and encourage you to connect Sunday, with Monday-Friday, in a secular, business world. It is my desire to help you live our Catholic faith in the marketplace, and to trust that it is good for business. I hope to offer you practical ways to go forth and glorify the Lord by your life.

In this edition, we will reflect on the readings for the Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time. There is so much in these readings. What are they saying about human nature? What are they saying about God’s providence? What can we learn about having rightly ordered beliefs? How do we apply the lessons to our work lives? So many questions.

I have a client whose gift is attention to details. This guy is very good at identifying what is wrong with a situation and this is a valuable trait because he’s always seeking to make things better. He is looking for continuous improvement and we all know there is always room for improvement.

The problem or challenge with this guy is that the people he works with feel like they can never do anything right. He’s always focusing on what they didn’t do or what they did wrong instead of what they did right. It doesn’t matter how hard they work, they feel like he doesn’t appreciate it. To him, effort doesn’t have much value. It is the results that count, and this can be very demotivating.

This type of person isn’t wrong for identifying failure, but he is wrong when he fails to communicate gratitude. He may think he shows appreciation when he says, “Good job…. BUT you didn’t do X, Y, and Z.” Unfortunately, the only thing his team hears is the “but you didn’t do…” So, how do we deal with these people?

Don’t take it personally!

If you work with or for someone like this, you might be able to empathize with poor Moses and Aaron. They had the whole Israelite community grumbling against them. It didn’t matter that Moses stood up against Pharaoh and risked his life to lead them out of slavery. How quick the Israelites were to forget what was done for them and ready to complain about what was wrong.

In the part of Exodus Chapter 16 that was omitted from the first reading for brevity, we read that Moses didn’t take the grumblings personally. Verses 5-8 read:

“So, Moses and Aaron told all the Israelites, “At evening you will know that it was the LORD who brought you out of the land of Egypt; and in the morning you will see the glory of the LORD, when he hears your grumbling against him. But who are we that you should grumble against us?” And Moses said, “When the LORD gives you meat to eat in the evening and in the morning your fill of bread, and hears the grumbling you utter against him, who then are we? Your grumbling is not against us, but against the LORD.”

Moses and Aaron didn’t take it personally, and neither should you. However, you should listen to what they are saying because their criticism is usually valid even though they may not voice it in an effective way. After all, they pay attention to details. Perhaps there are details you think are unimportant, but they are details that you missed. When you set your emotions aside and objectively listen to what is said, you might just learn something. What if what they are saying is true? Instead of getting defensive, take the offensive and find something in these critical observations that can help you become just a little bit better.

I think this is what St. Paul is talking about in the second reading from his letter to the Ephesians when he writes, “You should put away the old self of your former way of life,… and put on the new self.” When you hear the truth, you have a choice. You can harden your heart, become defensive and dismiss it, or you can allow it to motivate you to transform into a new and improved version of yourself.

Of course, St. Paul is talking about more than just the details of how you complete your tasks every day. He is talking about “righteousness and holiness of truth.”

And this is the heart of the three readings this Sunday – living according to the truth. “Truth is in Jesus,” writes Paul. Do you believe this?

Your beliefs matter. If you don’t believe in a cause, you won’t do anything to further it. If you don’t believe in yourself, you’ll likely not accomplish great things. Henry Ford said, “Whether you think you can or whether you think you can’t, you’re right.”

And he was right! Our behaviors follow our beliefs. I think this is why in the Gospel reading when the people asked, “What can we do to accomplish the works of God?” Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in the one he sent.”

Believe in the one he sent. They asked what they could do, and his response was “believe.” Jesus is telling us that we cannot do if we do not believe.

What do you believe? Perhaps a more important question is “who do you believe?” What we believe is highly influenced by who we believe. And who and what we believe is influenced by what we value.

Anyone who knows me knows that core values are important to me. In my work, I encourage people to gain clarity of what is most important to them. Why? Our values underlie our attitudes, behaviors, and decisions every minute of every day, whether we realize it or not. So, what do you value? What is really important to you on a personal level? What things would you not want to give up for all the money in the world? What would be important to you if you did have all the money in the world?

Many years ago, I reflected on these questions and wrote a list of my core values. Then, I prioritized them. The top 3 were: 1) God 2) Family 3) Health. I thought they looked good. But, as the best-selling author, Dr. Robert Anthony said, “If you want to know what your true beliefs are, take a look at your actions.”

So, I reflected on whether my decisions and behaviors were consistent with these espoused values. I realized I was not living in alignment. As Gandhi said, “To believe in something, and not to live it, is dishonest.” I was being dishonest. The truth was, work came first, family second and God was a distant 3rd. In Jesus’ terms, I was working “for food that perishes.”

Having clarity of what was important to me was the first half of the battle. The more important part was changing the decisions I made and how I behaved so that I walked the talk. Again, as St. Paul encouraged the Ephesians, he encourages us to “be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new self, created in God’s way in righteousness and holiness of truth.”

And this is a choice. We choose what we believe and then we choose to honor or not honor those beliefs with every decision we make. God gave us a gift of conscience to help us choose right. People cannot consistently behave inconsistently with their values and beliefs. When we do, there is an uncomfortable feeling in our gut.

One of my clients recently shared that he had made a decision that violated his company’s shared core values. Having made a commitment to these values, he violated his own integrity as well. In his case, the situation was a little complex and involved a decision he made that affected several people. He felt pressured by one of his employees who was unhappy with the decision and in reaction to that pressure, he responded by reversing it. The result was this employee was happy, but two other employees were not happy, and he violated his core values.

He told me what happened and how he dealt with the situation by apologizing to one of the individuals involved, but he still didn’t feel it had been resolved. That apology was a good step, but it wasn’t enough. He hadn’t made the situation right, and so, it nagged at him.

Our values and beliefs matter. They will guide our decisions and when we violate them, it will nag at us. We can’t consistently behave inconsistently with our values and beliefs. My client decided to make it right and it cost the company money. He also was transparent and shared with his team what happened, what he did wrong, and why he was making it right. It was a great lesson learned and a lesson shared. This client is continuing to grow and develop as a leader.

I also continue to grow and develop an understanding of what putting God first in my life means. One choice I’ve made is to attend daily Mass. I feel so blessed to have this gift—this gift that Jesus gave us of himself in the Eucharist. Do you believe this? Do you believe Jesus is present in the Eucharist? If Catholics are honest, almost everyone has had doubts about this Truth. We know that many Catholics have more than a doubt, they just don’t believe it. Ex-Catholics would not be the second largest religion if all Catholics believed in the real presence in the Eucharist.

I ran into an old acquaintance at the store last week. We know each other from church and she mentioned that she’d been bad about attending Mass on Sundays. In an expression of self-imposed guilt, she made some excuse about working nights and said she knew she should get back into regular attendance.

We can’t consistently behave inconsistently with our values and beliefs. I hope that this meeting was part of God’s plan to draw her back. I hope she chooses to respond.

It is a choice. I choose to believe. I choose to believe in the one he sent, “the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”

I choose to believe that “Truth is in Jesus.” I choose to believe that He is the Bread of Life; whoever comes to him will never hunger, and whoever believes in him will never thirst.

What do you believe? Your beliefs matter.

Let us ask the Holy Spirit to give us the grace to choose to believe and the courage to live accordingly.

Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love. Send forth your Spirit and they shall be created. And You shall renew the face of the earth. 

May God bless you abundantly and may you glorify the Lord by your life.  Amen

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Many thanks to Fr. Stan Fortuna for his musical gifts, especially the traditional and contemporary versions of Come Holy Ghost (Come Holy Spirit) that you hear in this podcast. You can find more from Fr. Stan http://www.francescoproductions.com/ or on Facebook.