Friday in the 28th Week of Ordinary Time, October 16, 2021

Luke 12:8-12

Jesus said to his disciples: “I tell you, everyone who acknowledges me before others the Son of Man will acknowledge before the angels of God. But whoever denies me before others will be denied before the angels of God. Everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but the one who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven. When they take you before synagogues and before rulers and authorities, do not worry about how or what your defense will be or about what you are to say. For the Holy Spirit will teach you at that moment what you should say.”

In our everyday world, we mostly only pay attention to the persons and things we can see and hear, and then we interpret what we see and hear in terms of how we ourselves are affected.  And yet so much else fills the world around us.  Some of it we can experience through the application of different types of light such as the infrared.  Some we can hear only with the use of machines.  With the eyes and ears of faith we can know that the world exists at all because of the enduring will of its Creator.  We can see the ongoing battle between the angels and demons,  we can see the saints interceding for us.  “I tell you, everyone who acknowledges me before others the Son of Man will acknowledge before the angels of God.”  The Son does this now as the scroll of Divine Providence continues to unroll before the eyes of the angels and saints in heaven, and as he answers the prayers of the faithful — they are acknowledged by his care for them.  The word translated here as “acknowledge” also means “to confess”, “to profess”, and “to praise”.  Thus: Everyone who praises me before others the Son of Man will praise before the angels of God.  The Lord indicates that those who publicly show their belief in him will be publicly acclaimed in heaven.  This is behind St. Paul’s words: “For if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised him up from the dead, you shall be saved” (Romans 10, 9).  This public act is not to be done merely among a group of believers but before the world.  The people of the earth must hear us or the angels will not.  While such an acknowledgment or confession or praise may be vocal, it should also take the form of charitable works not done for show but not scrupulously hidden, either.  And in doing this — performing acts of faith — we live in that vast world known only by faith.

“The one who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven.”  Those who see with the eyes of faith can know the horror of blasphemy as well as the beauty of works done for God.  The Lord points to blasphemy against the Holy Spirit as unforgivable.  The effect of this blasphemy is so grave because of the nature of the sin, which is apostasy and final impenitence.  This entails hatred of God, the rejection of grace, and a refusal to admit — let alone confess — sin.  For a person to commit apostasy, he must have at one time believed.  We ought to shudder at the thought of anyone losing and then rejecting his faith like this, and to pray that we never wind up in this miserable state ourselves. 

“The Holy Spirit will teach you at that moment what you should say.”  Because we do not accustom ourselves to seeing the power of God and the assistance of the angels and saints in our lives, in times of crisis we tend to lunge for merely the good we think we can do for ourselves.  But when the moment for our profession of faith, whether in asserting some truth taught by God or defending our holy religion, the Holy Spirit, with whom we were filled in our baptism, will speak for us in both words and actions.  We allow him to speak through our own prayer and meditation beforehand, and through living our lives virtuously.  Every day of our lives we prepare for him to speak.  The Lord Jesus himself called him out Paraclete — our Advocate.  He may be hidden from the faithless world we inhabit now, and his voice unheard, but if we allow him, he will manifest himself through us and teach the people who belong to this world that there is far more to it than that tiny corner of it they are paying attention to.