Fr. Michael Williams

Not owning up to something we’ve done may get us into trouble. I remember as a child my mother had told me and my sister not to go to the shop. We decided to go anyway. When we got back home my mother suspected we had ignored her wish and had gone to the shop. Of course we denied it. We said we had just been playing out, but she didn’t believe us. ‘But mum honest we haven’t been to the shop!’ ‘Then what is that black stuff around you mouth?’ Oh dear the game was up. We had made the mistake of buying liquorice and so our faces and mouths were blackened by the liquorice. There was no denying it now. The old saying proved itself to be true: ‘be sure your sins will find you out’. As Jesus says in the gospel, “everything that is now covered will be uncovered, and everything now hidden will be made clear”.

My sister and I were grounded because we didn’t own up to our little scheme. Jesus warns us in today’s gospel that if we don’t own up to being his followers we will be grounded for all eternity. “The one who disowns me in the presence of men, I will disown in the presence of my Father in heaven”. In today’s gospel Jesus is clearly telling us that we need to own up to being his followers. We don’t need to walk down Church Street wearing a sandwich board, but our lives do not to make known to others that we are disciples of Jesus by the way we talk and live.

Jesus also tells us in today’s gospel Three times in today’s gospel, “do not be afraid”. We should not be afraid of following the Lord. Jesus knows that following Him will not always be easy. There will be opposition from certain quarters. Certain elements from society will not want to hear the message of the gospel with its message of justice, peace, mercy, forgiveness. Some people will actively oppose the followers of Christ. In fact some people will oppose Jesus’ disciples so much, that they would prefer them dead to alive. Indeed this is what happened to ten of the Twelve Apostles- they were killed because of their faith in Jesus.

And throughout the twenty centuries of Christianity many people who witnessed to Jesus, and His teachings, suffered persecution for their beliefs. Indeed it is still going on today. Christians are openly persecuted because of their faith in places like China and the Sudan. In these countries many are imprisoned because of their Catholic Faith. Even in our own country the Christian faith is under attack in a subtle, but a very real way. You may have seen in the newspapers recently, that some people want crosses, and any other Christian symbols, removing from schools and hospitals. They are the ones who are disowning Christ.

Jesus is telling us today in twenty-first century Britain, “Do not be afraid”, to be witnesses to Him and to His gospel. To be witnesses will mean that we will have to declare our faith in the presence of others. Our faith can never be a private thing, it is something we have to declare in the places where we live and work. Our faith in the Lord Jesus needs to be manifested in the lives we lead.

As a child I had to learn that ‘honesty is the best policy’. We especially need to be honest in declaring our faith in the Lord to others, despite opposition. Because Jesus tells us that if we remain faithful to Him, then He will remain faithful to us: “if anyone declares himself for me in the presence of men, I will declare myself for him in the presence of my Father in heaven”.