Lesson from Fr. Paulus | Christ Is a True Friend

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, Jesus Christ loves us enough to tell us the truth about ourselves. Those who selfishly use other people instead of seeking their authentic good rarely tell them hard truths.

It's too risky. Pointing out their failings may result in offense and rejection - like the parents who are afraid to discipline their child. But love will take the risk, because love always goes after what is best for the beloved. A true friend will tell you when you're wrong, so that you can straighten out.

Christ is a true friend, and he shows it in this conversation with St Peter on last Sunday Gospel. Jesus' elevating Peter to a position of prominence in the coming Kingdom, as a first pope.

But then Jesus makes the shocking announcement that he is going to suffer greatly and be killed - he predicts his passion. Peter, puffed up with naïve self-importance, takes the Lord aside and disagrees with him.

That's when Christ comes down hard on him - very hard, calling him "Satan" and telling him that he is thinking like a pagan, not like a Christian. Only a true friend would do something like that.

Not everyone liked Jesus. Many Pharisees and Scribes positively hated him and had been plotting his death almost since the beginning of his ministry.

When Jesus made his speech about the importance of the Eucharist, of eating his flesh and drinking his blood in order to receive eternal life, most of his followers walked out on him.

Here too, by being so firm with Peter, he was risking a walk-out. But in every case, Jesus cared less about personal popularity than about the saving truth. He is a friend we can count on.

Jeremiah's Lament

Being honest about the hard truths got Jesus in trouble - in fact, it got him crucified. It also got the Old Testament prophets in trouble, and Jeremiah is a prime example.

He lived in Jerusalem in the final years before that city was conquered and destroyed by the Babylonians, in 588 BC. His God-given task was to warn the Israelites that if they didn't repent and return to the commandments and the faith of their fathers, disaster would strike.

No one wanted to hear that, especially not the corrupt rulers, so they tried to silence him. They spread lies about him, accusing him of sins he never committed. They imprisoned him more than once. One time some false prophets even threw him into an old well, filled with mud, and left him there to die.

Another time the king asked him to write down his prophecies, and when the scroll was read in the king's presence, he became so infuriated that he ripped up the scroll, threw the pieces into the fire, and then had Jeremiah arrested. And yet, God continued to give Jeremiah the courage to speak the hard truths, to warn the Israelites, encouraging them to repent.

This experience of speaking the saving truth even at great personal cost is what Jeremiah describes in today's Reading: "...the word of the LORD has brought me derision and reproach all the day. I say to myself... I will speak in his name no more. But then it becomes like fire burning in my heart, imprisoned in my bones; I grow weary holding it in, I cannot endure it."

Jeremiah was a preview of Jesus. Jesus loves us too much to hide the hard truths - even if he knows that we don't always want to hear them.

Being a True Friend to Jesus

Jesus tells us the hard truths we need to hear; he loves us too much to put his own comfort ahead of our spiritual and moral well-being. During this Mass, we should thank him for being a true friend, and let his love give us comfort and confidence.

But we should also ask ourselves a difficult question. What kind of friend are we being to Jesus? Jesus cares about this; he doesn't want a one-way relationship. There are at least two ways we can check up on this.

First, are we honest with him in prayer? It is easy for us to turn our prayer into an exterior exercise in good manners rather than a real, heart-to-heart conversation. Jesus is our King, but he is also our older brother, the kind of brother who really cares, who you can talk to about anything. Is that the kind of relationship we have with him?

Second, are we courageous about speaking the hard truths to others? Jesus died for every sinner, and he wants to save all of us - our neighbors, our cousins, our co-workers, our teammates... everyone. And we are his messengers - messengers of his love.

That means that sometimes it's up to us to tell people the hard truths that no one else will tell them, the ones that they really need to hear, so that they don't damage their souls, their lives, and their futures. This doesn't necessarily mean going to football practice wearing a chastity sign. But it does mean reaching out to your buddy who is struggling with temptation and helping him make the right decision.

The best way to thank our Lord for being such a faithful friend to us is to be a faithful friend to him in return.