ENRICHED BY HIM

A REFLECTION FOR THE 18TH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

There’s not much difference between a mushroom and a toadstool.  You’ll find them both growing in the same places in the forest, they look very similar, and can easily be mistaken one for another.  And yet, there is a difference, one that is actually quite an important one.  It’s the difference between enjoying a very nice accompaniment to your steak, or severe abdominal pain, vomiting leading to coma and even death.  Mushrooms and toadstools, so close and yet so far.

People are the same.  Some folks are safe, good, pleasant, and bring happiness, godliness and grace wherever they go.  Others bring pain, misery and sin.  And yet, when you look at them in a crowd, it’s not easy to see the difference.  Some of the bad folks can be quite pleasant to look at, and sometimes have alluring personalities full of charm and wit.  On the other hand, many good people can be grumpy and gruff, plain in visage, and devoid of charisma.  Like books, people should not be judged by their cover.

And like fungus from the woodlands, people, especially strangers, should not be blindly trusted.  Even as we treat all strangers with kindness and Christian charity, it does not follow that we should think of them necessarily as gurus of wisdom or saints to whom we should entrust our soul.  Whether we put that ‘mushroom’ in our frying pan or our trash can deserves a little thought and time, and even when we think we can trust someone, let’s still make sure by verifying.  The extra effort pays off in the end.

The bottom line, of course, is whether we are a mushroom or a toadstool.  It matters little what we look like, whether we can hold your own in polite conversation, if our IQ is high or low, or whatever.  What matters is where we are on the scale of grace, whether we tend towards the fullness of grace like our Blessed Mother, or are completely devoid of grace like Lucifer.  Certainly, we’re somewhere between the two, but where exactly?  There’s a line drawn in that “in between”, a line that makes us nutritious or poisonous depending on which side of it we stand.  If we can honestly answer the question as to whether the world would be a better place “without me in it”, we might understand ourselves a little better and realize how hard we need to work to correct our behavior.  A toadstool is a plant and cannot convert into a mushroom.  But we have free will, and can choose the effect we have on others. 

In today’s Epistle, St. Paul reminds us just how much we are enriched by God in every thing.  All the things we say, everything we know—God’s grace makes all our utterances and knowledge richer.   It follows that we must seek out this grace, and then use it in our everyday behavior to make those around us also richer.  Just as the multitudes saw Christ’s power to heal sick bodies and forgive sinful souls, so too may the people we encounter marvel and glorify God by seeing how we enlighten and teach the ignorant, how we heal the ills of this world and work God’s grace among them.  This is how we can shine among men, by simply reflecting the grace of God and helping him turn others from toadstools into mushrooms.