Serving the King

No, this is not another crack about the irrepressible Youth Alpha stalwart from Bukidnon, Elvis. Rather, this is about the homily that Elvis and I heard when we attended mass in the Chapel of Our Lady of Guadalupe yesterday. In Mark 9:38-40, we read of how John the Beloved, perhaps out of a misguided sense of devotion to our Lord, spoke of how he and the other disciples tried to prevent a man, not of their company, from driving out demons in Jesus' name.

Jesus replied, “Do not prevent him. There is no one who performs a mighty deed in my name who can at the same time speak ill of me. For whoever is not against us is for us.”

The priest then asked the mass-goers to consider this: at the end of all things, when we meet our God, would He be concerned if we are "Catholic"? Or is this label a merely human concern?

Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa, Preacher to the Papal Household, gently reminds the Catholic faithful to focus on what matters by quoting 2 Corinthians 4:5 "For we do not preach ourselves but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your slaves for the sake of Jesus."

Leaving the Chapel of Our Lady of Guadalupe yesterday, I was struck by the many wonderful ways that our Lord reminds us of what matters. Elvis is a living reminder that all that we do in Alpha (with all due respect to the man who made the words "hound" and "dog" synonymous not only with each other, but with knock-your-socks-off-rock-and-roll) is in service to the King.