VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
Power of Personal Witness
13.31
July 20th, 2013
FATHER LAIRD:
What we want to do is do this well and we do that first by relating. When you do your best job
as a parent, when you do your best job as a supervisor, when you do your best job as a spouse,
or a friend, you do that by relating.
We want, my brothers and sisters, as we appreciate this gift is first of all to appreciate how
Jesus relates to us. Jesus becomes the way that we relate to other people, and we’ve
emphasized that simple point. We relate to others as they are, not as we would want them to
be, because that’s the way Jesus relates to us.
If every human heart has been created by God, if Saint Augustine is correct, that the heart is
restless until it rests in God then I have nothing ever to be afraid, when it comes to deal with
another human heart, because that heart longs for God, and in the mystery of God’s plan, I,
you, we, have become the place of the possibility of an encounter. Heart to heart, ‘Cor ad Cor
loquitur’ as Cardinal Newman would say. We want to relate as Jesus relates to us, and I have to
tell you sometimes the best place to relate is in the most ordinary circumstances of our life. In
the very ordinary realities of our life
We want to reveal. After having related to another we want to reveal how the good news has
been transformative in my life. What’s the difference the good news makes? We will relate
and we will reveal an awful lot, because as human beings, we can’t but communicate, but so
often we communicate about the most trivial things. How well do we communicate about our
personal relationship with Jesus, which inevitably leads us to joy? Joy is the infallible sign of the
Christians. So here’s a real test for you. How many people in your life would say you’re joyful?
If we don’t pass that test, then even the silent witness of our life is not doing so well. But if I
everyday experience the person of Jesus, if I experience his transforming love, that even when
my spouse fails or my employer fails, or the country fails, or whatever it is, that I nevertheless
have a way to the fullness of life, and it is the mystery of God’s love. How can I not rejoice in
that very truth?
The more that I rejoice in that truth, the more people will say, what inspires them? Why is he
like that? What does she know that I don’t know? In fact the opportunity before the church,
the opportunity before Christian believers, has never been greater in the history of the world.
Perhaps we’re seeing less and less, we’re hearing less and less about the one thing that can
fulfill our hearts, Jesus. But if we’re seeing less and less if we’re hearing less and less, it’s not
because the church isn’t doing her part, it’s whether the sons and daughters of the church are
doing their part.
Here’s a beautiful way to think about that, John’s Gospel. John has a real sense of this. He tells
that beautiful story of encountering, of Jesus encountering the blind man. The question that’s
asked of Jesus is, is this man blind because of some sin? Why is he blind? Jesus says he’s not
blind because of some sin but through his blindness the transformative nature of the good
news will be revealed. You may say, Father, I’m not going to be a very good personal witness a
very good personal communicator, because there are areas in my life that I struggle that I don’t
want anyone ever, ever, ever, to know, and I’m afraid that people are going to think me a
hypocrite. Or if I witness, the people are then going to understand something about my life and
say, what a liar you are. That is not the Lord speaking to us. That’s the Father of lies speaking
to us, not the Father of life.
That was the very question that was before Jesus. Isn’t there some shame in this man’s life that
has led him to be blind? No, no, no, he’s blind but I’m going to show you the transformative
nature of the good news. Whatever weakness you have, whatever poverty I have, when we
give it to Jesus, it becomes part of the good news. It becomes the place of a possibility of an
encounter for others with Jesus. So, the encounter takes place of Jesus in the blind man. What
happened? Jesus relates to the blind man in his blindness. Not with judgment, not with shame,
but he relates to him, just as Jesus has related to us, and Jesus reveals something to him. I am
the light of the world.
That is one of the great themes all throughout John’s Gospel. I am the light of the world. I
want to bring light where there is darkness. Our personal witness is an account of where light
has penetrated into the darkness of our lives, and that’s what Jesus does. He brings the light
such that now I can see.
In that beautiful story of John’s Gospel, the blind man wants to go and testify that I can see and
who has brought me to see but Jesus. Maybe John was thinking of that years later when he
wrote that first letter. What I have seen, what I have heard, what I have touched, I hand on to
you. What are you handing on and how do you hand that on? The beautiful power of personal
testimony, the way in which we are going to witness, moves through that movement. Of
understanding the way that Jesus has related to us in our darkness and he has revealed the
light of his love, and how as a result of the light of his love, my life has changed? My life begins
more and more to be filled with his life.
What we want to do is give the testimony that’s in us. Be prepared to give the testimony that is
in us. I want to make a transition because you’ve got some homework to do. We’re going to
do that right now, but before I give you the homework I want to offer this simple point. There
are people in your life right now, in your family, in your place of work, in associations that you
belong to or relationships that you have, who may only come to know Jesus through your
witness. We want the church to be filled in all of her glory because the church is that place of
the encounter with Jesus. It is his body, but to do that we have to go and meet people where
they are.
I hope that what you will do is have great confidence that Christ has called you to witness to
that person, that your very life would become a place of the possibility of an encounter so that
they might come to this beautiful Cathedral one day, that they might say ‘Amen’ when the body
of Christ if offered to them. That their hearts might be filled with gratitude when the words of
absolution are spoken to them, that when they come to the end of their life and they take their
last breath they have not fear but they have only love that at last they are going to their
heavenly home where the fullness of life has been offered and promised to us all because we’re
going to give our testimony to one and other, but a couple of things about that testimony.
One, ordinary is better than extraordinary. You may be blessed with significant moments in
your life that radically altered the arc of your journey in this world. I’m not asking you to
disown that. All I’m asking you to do is many people don’t have extraordinary experiences. God
is intimately present in the ordinary. So, be aware when we’re trying to relate to people where
they are, I need to be mindful of their experiences and their challenges, and their struggles, and
telling them about my extraordinary experiences might become an impediment for them
coming to know Jesus. First simple point.
Secondly, I want you to write a three-minute testimony. You get three minutes. We’re going to
spend fifteen minutes to come up with three-minutes. We may not always have the
opportunity to offer a three-hour discourse on ‘why I am Catholic’ and ‘why I love the faith’. In
fact sometimes the longer I speak, the less people listen. But what if I only have three minutes
at a family reunion, or three minutes in the grocery line, or three minutes at work next to the
coffee maker? How am I going to articulate the difference Jesus makes in my life, and why I
find the fullness of my relationship with Jesus in the church?
We want to go through that process very simple. Think about the ordinary ways in which God
has entered your life. It may have happened through a significant event, an illness, or the loss
of a job. Fundamentally having to confront something about your life that you still struggle
with but that Jesus has entered into. What is your blindness? We all have blindness in our life.
What did Jesus illuminate? Why is my relationship with Him and the Church something that I
want to share with others? Why? How does my blindness become transformed by his
revelation and tell the difference that it makes in your life.
We’re all going to give our personal witness or you can’t leave. So you can join some of the
other people in the basement of the Cathedral who have been here for a very, very long time,
but we all want to give our personal testimony today because there are people in your life who
are starving and thirsting to hear about Jesus. The only place they’re going to hear it from, in
the mystery of God’s providence, is from you. That is the power of our personal witness.