"If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life maimed than with two hands to go into Gehenna, into the unquenchable fire." // Mark 9:43

Today’s Gospel (see Mark 9:41-50), when read honestly and carefully, can lead us to deeply consider the way we live. It can help us examine our consciences in the following way:  

Do I treat my fellow Christians with dignity simply because they share faith in the same Christ our Redeemer, or do I tend to believe the worst of their intentions? Do I cast them aside because they hold opinions about the Church or world that I do not? 

Have I caused a little one to stumble? Have I not protected the innocence of my children? Have I scandalized someone who does not know Christ by my failure to follow His precepts in public, online, or through how I treated someone else? 

Have I allowed sinful parts of my life to continue because I’ve been unwilling to cut them off? Have I let bad habits of committing small sins go unchecked and unconfessed? Have I not plucked out how I think and treat other people because I simply accept it as part of myself and my personality? What do I refuse to let go of? What do I grasp on to more tightly than my faith?

Do I choose to walk along a path away from God simply because I wouldn’t want to challenge my own sense of self? Is my idea of my own individuality causing me to refuse to be conformed to Christ by clinging to sin? Where in my life do I purposefully walk farther from the ways of God? 

Have I allowed myself to be stripped of my flavor as a daughter of God the Father by simply blending into the crowd around me? Have I refused to step outside my comfortable circle of friends, to get to know and engage with people outside my faith and act like salt to an unbelieving world? 

Christ’s words today are speaking directly to my heart and to yours. Christ offers us forgiveness and love, but we have to choose to follow Him, and that requires changing how we live. Let’s make a commitment to begin our conversion anew today.