“A prophet is not without honor except in his native place and among his own kin and in his own house.” – Mark 6:4

The Gospel today tells about faith and honor. What does it mean to even have honor? What is honor, anyway? Honor is to have high respect. Every one of us has a certain degree of honor that is much like dignity. We all have it and we take care of it. But to have such a high degree of respect, we have to earn it. Much like respect itself, we don’t have it with just a flick of a finger but we earn it. We work hard for it. The Gospel also tells about mighty deeds. Deeds can either be good or bad depending on the reasons we do them. It doesn’t really matter if we’re rich or poor when we do some deeds. In the Gospel and Jesus’ life, we can see that He can only perform miracles when we as people have faith in Him and in God.

We experience small to big good deeds in our life and at the same time, we also made good deeds to others. The Gospel simply speaks and tells a message of doing things that are good to others. It doesn’t really matter if they repay us back but feeling good about having done what is right should be enough for us. When we do something good, we must not do it for popularity. Whatever our right hand does, our left hand doesn’t need to know. In our time today, we get so obsessed about the fact that we want to be popular and be known. Sometimes we don’t even care if it’s for the wrong reasons. That is where we learn to really think about our honor and to really respect ourselves in a true deeper sense.

In my life, I’m sure that there have been times in your life as well, when you had to think about doing something good, but you get tempted to make it a big deal for your own good. Well, that’s also when true power comes to you because “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” It doesn’t necessarily mean that we become weak to that temptation and we give in but rather we become strong in the sake of Christ. In class, I’m sort of referred to as the national bookstore because I’m always prepared when it comes to school supplies. Whatever you need, I have it. Well, there are times when we need bond papers and other stuff for our class activities and there are these typical classmates that are just not that prepared and always ask for paper. Apparently, I’m the one they always ask from. I thought I was doing a good thing by always giving but there came a time when it was already too much and my mom got mad because some were already abusing me. They just get without even asking permission so that’s when I just kept it secret whenever I saw someone getting without asking even if I knew it was wrong because I’m teaching them to abuse me.

I guess the message here is to do good and listen to one’s conscience in order not to do wrong against another.

-Ianna Isabel Palabyab