What Do You Know in Your Heart?

 

readings/090925 

I asked a middle schooler recently,
“What do you believe?”
He looked at me, confused.
“I don’t know exactly what you mean,” he said.

So I tried again.
“What do you know in your heart as a real fact—something that’s true in your life?”
He paused. Thought for a while.
Then he said, “If I make good grades, then at the end of the grading period, I’ll get something.”

I smiled. “So you believe you’re smart?”
He shook his head.
“No. I just like getting stuff.”

That answer was honest.
Not polished. Not theological.
But real.
And it made me wonder—how often do we confuse reward with truth?

Saint Paul writes:

“As you received Christ Jesus the Lord, walk in him,
rooted in him and built upon him,
established in the faith as you were taught,
abounding in thanksgiving.”

We live in a world that teaches us to earn.
To prove.
To chase what’s shiny.
But the Gospel teaches us to receive.
To be rooted.
To be raised.

Paul reminds us:
We were buried with Christ in baptism.
We were raised through faith in the power of God.
We were forgiven—not because we earned it,
but because He nailed our debt to the cross.

This is Eucharistic truth.
Not transaction, but transformation.
Not merit, but mercy.

And then we see Jesus in Luke’s Gospel:
He goes up the mountain to pray.
He chooses his apostles.
He comes down to the level ground.
He heals.
He touches.
Power flows from him—and it heals them all.

That’s the Jesus who meets the middle schooler.
That’s the Jesus who meets me.
Who meets you.

Not with a checklist.
But with presence.
With healing.
With fullness.

So today, I ask again—
Not just to the youth, but to all of us:
What do you know in your heart as true?

Is it the reward?
Or is it the Redeemer?

Let us walk in Him.
Rooted.
Raised.
Healed.
And let our thanksgiving overflow.

Rooted in the Redeemer

Lord Jesus,
You meet us not with prizes,
but with presence.
Not with merit,
but with mercy.

Root us in You—
beneath the surface,
beyond the striving,
within the quiet truth
that we are loved.

Raise us in faith,
heal us in grace,
and let our thanksgiving overflow.
Amen.