While praying through the readings for today the last couple lines stood out to me. “When Jesus finished these words, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as their scribes.” At first I had no idea why this specific line would keep coming to my attention, but as I reflected more I realized that we have all been given authority by God. The question is, do we use that authority to preach the Good News. 

All of us at our baptism were baptized into the offices of priest, prophet, and king. Though these roles may look slightly different for all of us depending on our stages in life, we all have them. It is interesting to hear in the Gospel that the scribes had forgotten any authority they had or at least were not putting it into practice. Maybe sometimes we struggle with that same problem. Often we can think of baptism just as the sacrament that forgives our sins and opens salvation, but it is much more than that. 

Baptism makes us part of a family and within that family we have certain responsibilities and authority. Now you might be asking yourself what the priesthood role has to do with you if you are not a priest? Or how does a king apply to me? Aren’t kings just an old-school method of governance? 

Well let’s break these down one at a time. First, a priest’s role is to make the commonplace holy. This is what he does during every Mass with the bread and wine. Although we are not going to be consecrating the Eucharist, we should be asking ourselves how we can make the commonplace holy in our day to day lives. How can we bless the people God has given us to care for? 

Second, a prophet is one who has faith that what God says is true and then communicates that message to others. We can do the same thing. We can have that same amount of faith to trust God with our whole lives and then invite people into that beautiful mystery by proclaiming the Good News. 

Finally, a king is one who has power over their domain. For many of us our domain might be our family. It might be various relationships we have in our lives. Or it might even be our own body. A good ruler is one who takes care of his kingdom. Our body is a temple of the Holy Spirit that we have been given to take care of. Are we acting like a good king and making sure we are taking care of our “kingdom” or are we stuffing our temple with garbage in our words, thoughts, and actions? 

I think all of us can benefit from taking a moment today to reflect inwardly and see how we can use the offices of our baptism to better serve the Church. 

From all of us here at Diocesan, God bless!

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