 It's good to see you, my brothers. I don't know about you, but the first time that I was able to be at our parish when the people came back for the first time after COVID, that time was a very emotional time for me, just seeing the people there and being able to celebrate once again. And I'm sitting here having the same similar emotions. It's great to be back, amen. Well, the Gospel reading is very interesting. It's what we have here in this particular text in this Gospel is the fifth example when Jesus makes the declaration that he's not going to annul or cancel the law and the prophets, but he's come to fulfill them. And so he has to give us an example and he gives us several different examples and now we're in the midst of this fifth example of how he's going to fulfill the law and the prophets. And as I was praying through this particular passage, there was one line that struck me and I thought we could unpack that for our time together. It's that one line when Jesus says, should anyone press you into service for a mile? Go with him for two miles. And as I was thinking about that particular passage, I was thinking about that in particular and my mind immediately went to an example in the Gospels of someone who was pressed into service. And of course when we think of the passion of Jesus and we think of Simon, Sirene, of Sirene. The faithful Jew has two of his boys they're on Jerusalem, on his way to Jerusalem to pray at the temple. And Jesus is being escorted out with his cross and the Roman centurion see him. The big guy, let's get him to carry the cross because Jesus can't do it anymore. I put myself in Simon's shoes or sandals and that moment I'm, well how would I be feeling in that moment if I were him? I'd be afraid because I'm just looking to go to the temple to pray and these Romans now are forcing me to align myself with what appears to be a criminal. I'm on the way to the temple to pray. Am I gonna be defiled because I'm now helping this criminal? What are the people going to think of me if I go into this service? Because I'm being pressed and yet here's the Lord telling us if someone presses you for a mile, go too. I'd be feeling resentful to the Romans for making me do it. I'd be fearful. What would people think? I'd be afraid of my sons. Who's gonna care for them while I'm doing this? And yet Jesus says, go. The best way to deal with the resentment is to go even beyond, farther than what you ever thought you could. Give more than what is being asked of you. How do you do that? Honestly, I mean, I'll be honest, I'd be really ticked off. I don't wanna do this. I know I have to because the Romans will make me one way or another. But how many times have we been asked to do things? How many times have we been pressed into service after we've just done a bunch of stuff and we're just tired? And we don't wanna do anymore. Maybe we wanna go hide. And what does the Lord command? Go to. I'm not sure I know how to do that. How do you get rid of the resentment? How many times have we felt resentful for having to do the office that we've been called to serve? And are we wrong for feeling resentful? How many times have we been asked to do something? We're honestly afraid to do it because we're afraid of what people will think or what will people do or what will people say? I mean, we're human. No one likes to be rejected. No one likes to be told that they're not doing something good or they're not doing a good job or we like this deacon better than that one or this priest better than that one or because we're human. We haven't stopped being the men we are created to be. We're still broken, we're still hurting and yet Jesus still commands us. The fulfillment of my kingdom is not to go one mile but to go two. I think that Paul tells us in the first reading, he lays out a lot of the same struggles that we were going through. He gives us this great example. He goes through and he starts giving us the litany of things that he was struggling with, his battleground, the things that he was going through in his day. Why do we need to go two? Why isn't just one enough? Why is it he wants two? One sounds great to me. Why two? Because he said it in the end. Father Dave was talking about two kingdoms earlier that we can see them. We can still have our eyes fixed on the kingdom of God but we see this kingdom of the world just rising and the evil rising and influencing our people and now all of our good people are starting to get swayed and people are succumbing to a spirit of fear and people don't know it appears with the faith in Jesus Christ is gone but we know that faith. We understand what we have because he said it in the last line. People say that we're poor, that we have nothing to offer, that the Catholic church and Christianity is irrelevant in our days. They call us poor because we have nothing but we know we have everything. We have everything because we have Christ and when we have him, there is nothing that we need if we choose to believe that. But that's the choice, isn't it? That's the choice, the choice to believe or not to believe. You know, Thomas gets a bad rap because he says unless you show me the evidence I will not believe. He used an act of his will to say I choose not to believe until I see the evidence. But Jesus is saying that because you have me I have everything and I got everything you need and I have everything your people need. The problem is that they choose not to believe that. I need you to believe. So he goes to Thomas and says, Thomas come look, here's the hole in my side. Come put your finger in and stop unbelieving but believe. And so Paul goes through and he gives this litany of things of how the world is gonna pursue us. I believe going forward we are treated as deceivers yet we are truthful because we're proclaiming the truth of God. We're unrecognized yet acknowledged as dying and behold we live as chastised and yet put to death as sorrowful and yet always rejoicing as poor yet enriching many. Brothers, I think it's easy to get our eyes off Christ. At least if you're like me and start seeing all the rest of the stuff and seeing how people have responded but our God wants us to remember that we have everything in him that he just wants to bless us. For me that's been one of my COVID messages is that my heavenly father, I've been one of those people that maybe felt a little guilty because COVID has been just an amazing time in one sense for me and that I was able to not do any work because preachers kind of came to a grinding halt in COVID. And yet I felt like the Samaritan womb, I mean the poor widow who kept going back to the flower jar and the flower was still there. And then he moved my wife and I to Texas all during this time when I had nothing but the truth was I had everything because I had him. And our father's message to me was just very constant. Ralph I just want to bless you. I just want to bless you. I just want to bless you. Tell me what do you think Simon received from Jesus after he got him to Calvary? I'm sure it was hard. He was sweating, he was being judged where the people thinking he's a sinner too but he chose to stay with Jesus. He chose to carry the burden with the Lord. I can imagine at the very beginning being afraid are people gonna associate me with this guy who's gonna be crucified for the rest of my life? Is this what's now on my plate? And not only is he gonna be associated with Jesus for the rest of his life but it's recorded in the book. Who knows about Simon? We may not see it in the midst of the struggle and the midst of the brokenness and the midst of the pain and suffering that we have to go through when we choose to go into service for not one but two miles. But in the end we receive is the blessing not because we earned it but just because he wanted to bless us. So why go to instead of one? Because God is love and that's what love mandates and we don't just give a little, we give it all because that's what Jesus did and because we have him, we can do it too. Two miles.