Homily

Do you invite every single person who rings your doorbell into your house? Do you allow everyone who knocks on your door to enter your home? And once they are inside, do you let people stay for as long as they want to? Do you let them do or say whatever they wish, no matter how upsetting or awful that may be? And when others are in your house do you allow them to tell you how you should act, what you should do or not do? Who do you allow to be in control, it is them or is it you, or is it sometimes a back and forth between who has that power?

So let us now replace the word, "person" with "thoughts," and the word, "home," with "head." Do you allow every single thought that wants to get into your head to come in and stay for a while? And once a thought is inside, do you permit it to stay for as long as it wishes to stay? Do you allow your thoughts to tell you how you should act, what you should say or do no matter how awful or upsetting they may be? Do you permit them to say whatever they like, because after all it's a free country? Who is in control?

Where do our thoughts come from? You will have to ask a person smarter than me to get a good and more complete answer to that question. But what I do want to tell you is that we need to do our best to take charge of our thoughts, because they are not us. We may certainly find reflections of ourselves in many of our thoughts but just because ideas are in our heads, it does not mean they are us. We've all experienced, for example, thoughts of taking revenge on people who have hurt us, but that does not mean we have followed through on those imaginings, because we know it's wrong and we choose not to do it.

I do think, in a way, thoughts are often like people who ring our doorbell, or perhaps more directly they are often visitors who just come inside whether invited or not, welcome or not. And I think, too many times and for too long a time, we may just allow some of them to stay and do as they please. We may let them in because they seem so strong, we're afraid we can't say no. Or if they just barge in, we don't think we can tell them to leave. Now thoughts can be great helps to us and encourage us to do good, to live well, to worship the Lord, to serve our neighbor. Those kinds of thoughts should always be welcome and made to feel that they are right at home. Those kinds of thoughts should be given food and drink and the best seats in our house as we pay attention to their good conversation and their encouragement for us. We should always ask them if they have any good friends that they would like us to meet and if so, then text them to come on over and join us.

But then there are those other thoughts that come in. They can be mean and nasty, they can be oppressive and punishing, and they can be sources of fear and temptation in a hundred different ways. They bring us false sadness, empty pleasure, irritation, frustration, fear, memories of past sins and ideas of future wrongdoing. They can be good at lying and deception, pushing us to wrong ideas and false conclusions. They can pile on to try to push us by the sheer number of their existences. We are not our thoughts, but our bad or unhelpful thoughts want to be a part of us.

Although it might seem obvious to us, I still find that many times, we do not take care to manage what is inside our heads and perhaps too often we allow our minds to play "Open House," letting whatever wants to come in, come in. We guard and protect ourselves in proper ways in many areas of our life. Shouldn't we also guard ourselves against bad, harmful and sinful thoughts? We should pay attention to them and tell them to leave even if we may at first, have allowed them inside. Once we notice their bad intentions or their negative effect on us, we need to stop paying them attention and tell them to get out. Granted that sometimes they may be very powerful, or they may be very large in number and it's hard to get them out the door, but even so we should not give up. We should call on the Lord to help us push them out and give us the grace of persistence.

The easiest way to deal with negative, bad or tempting thoughts is to catch them right at the door before they are sitting in your kitchen and drinking your best liquor. Right at the front door, just as if they were a couple of Jehovah's Witnesses, we can tell them, "No, thank you. I'm a Christian," and close the door so we can get on with better things. More and more in life I find myself telling my mind to just shut up and stop it. Don’t keep going there. I won’t let this thought burden my life. I will not give in to it. I can’t tell you how many times my thoughts have betrayed me and caused me harm or other people harm. One good example is with fear about what might happen in the future with this thing or that, with this person or that. And yet the truth is that so many times the horrible thing I feared would happen never came to be, or else it was nothing as bad as what my thoughts told me to worry about.

But if such thoughts have entered our home, it does not mean they have the right to stay, nor should we let them. We need plenty of room for the thoughts that will inspire us and help us to love, to live in virtue and to follow the Lord. The rich young man in today's Gospel did not end up in misery without Christ simply because of one thought, one idea, one response. I suspect it was the result of many wrong and false ideas that he had allowed in his head over a long period of time, ideas that had eventually so corrupted his understanding of who he was and what his life was all about, that even though he obeyed all the commandments when the Giver of the commandments is standing in front of him, calling him to salvation, he cannot go there. He cannot follow. He doesn’t believe he can make it through life without all his money. His thoughts have cost him his life.

Let us pay attention to the thoughts and ideas that try to mold our lives, guarding ourselves against the bad and the harmful, and seeking out those which push us upward and outward and even into eternal life. Let us continually evict those who would harm us or harm others and instead let us set the table for those thoughts that help us with patience, peace, love and the glory of God.