The gospel today is really all about the quality of the heart and how we will be judged by the quality of our hearts, how we live our lives. I remember years ago, I was at a Parish, Saint Juliana’s on the north west side of the city and I would say daily Mass there and there was a woman in the Parrish who was a terrible gossip. Oh God, did she love to gossip. And, everybody knew that about her. Well, one of the associate Pastors one day after Mass, had a crowd around him and he saw her so he said it loud enough for her to her. He said, “What do you think of Father Scott’s new toupee?” She heard it and she remembered it.

So, within the next day or two when I would celebrate daily Mass, all the parishioners were kinda looking to see at my new toupee, you know? And I knew that she knew so I would sit there and I would kinda straighten it and … I let it go for about a month. And then one day after Mass I said, “Delores come here.” And she came out. I said, “Delores, give it a good yank.” She said, “Father, I never said a word.” I said, “Yeah.” Gossip, it’s another one. The things that come from within and Jesus gives a whole litany of the things that come in and they really diminish life. It takes away from others. Gossip being one of the things.

Jesus calls us to live life to the fullest. Jesus is talking about the quality of the heart. The way in which we live our lives out of love. Out of affection, out of forgiveness, out of compassion walking with those who suffer in life. Those are the good things from within, they are the values and the virtues and the call of the gospel in our own lives. To live out of the heart, a loving full heart, not to live out of a heart that is stingy and darkened and tough.

The things from within. The quality of our human hearts. We are to walk with the Lord, walk with the Lord with loving hearts. With giving hearts, with those things that come from within that enhance the life of others and the world in which we live.