Sunday 1 June 2025
Our Lady Immaculate
I’ve been trying to understand the Gospel reading all day. I read it. I listened to it. Then I listened to an explanation of it. And I still failed. So thinking more about Communications Day – awareness of church efforts to spread the word, and for which there was a second collection – was a lot easier.
I was still thinking about this later in the morning when my wife and I drove to the garden center.
We drove past a couple pushing a large dog in a pram. In the car park I noticed a Tesla. with a sticker on the back with a message that read: “I love my Tesla, but not Elon Musk”. Then on the drive home we passed the local fire station with had raised the rainbow LGBT+ flag on the flagpole on its lawn.
My wife told me not to be, but I was bothered by all this communicating.
We once kept our beliefs private. To encourage harmony. Now there is an expectation to volunteer them. Worse is the expectation that they be seen or heard.
Another communication, from a podcast this time: “Jesus challenges us not to do things for others to see them.” I’ve struggled with my reaction all day.
The performative nature of the dog owners. The progressive advertising of the Tesla sticker. The woke credentials of the fire brigade. All of them are a challenge, provoking some sort of reaction. But they’re like a test. Is your reaction the correct one?
Whether I agreed or disagreed is nothing compared to the harm it does to the harmony of community. It’s one thing to show your supposed virtue. Something else to provoke judgement. They make it harder to be charitable, and uncover our own judgemental sides. A trap I appear to fall into every time.