Our Lord says this generation is like children who call to one another,
we played the flute for you, but you did not dance.
We sang a dirge, but you did not mourn.
So they said that St. John was possessed by a demon because he fasted so severely,
and our Lord was a drunkard and a glutton because he mingled with the sinners.
He mingled with the ordinary men and did what they did,
certainly with moderation and great reserve as well.
But they always tried to find fault, tried to find fault with our Lord, with St. John the Baptist.
They were looking for faults because if they accepted them,
then they would have had to listen to their words and change their life,
and they didn't want to do that.
And they do that, people do that throughout the generations to the ends of the world,
always trying to find fault with those who are setting, who are a conscience to others, to the world.
And the church is always being attacked.
There's always, they're always trying to find, those who are enemies of the church,
always trying to find faults with the church, no matter all the good that the church does,
all the saints, they find even faults with the saints, find fault with Mother Teresa,
Pope John Paul II, you name it, they find fault and they put the saints to death, of course,
find so much fault with them.
But we can,
be that way as well in our day to day, we can be critical of others,
find fault with other people, and look for ways to find fault with our neighbor.
Instead, we should do the opposite.
We should try to see the good in our neighbor and look for the good, and love does that.
Love always tries to see the silver lining, tries to see the good in others,
and tries to do good to others.
Think good, hope for the best, see the best, and make excuses for those,
and overlook the faults of others.
Even when the cross comes, and adversity comes, and we lose things, we lose our prosperity,
we can see the good in that, and in the end, we see that God is the guiding hand through everything.
If we look with that supernatural outlook, we see good in everything.
Because God is here, God is here in our midst, bringing good out of everything.
And so this is the perennial sort of optimism, we could say,
a perennial hopefulness, to bring good out of everything that we have,
that Jesus brings to the world, that the church brings.
And this is the mark of the true Christian, to have that perennial hope and joy
in everything, and Jesus gives this to us, and the church teaches it to us,
the saints teach it, and we need to practice it, and pray for that grace
to always look with the eyes of love upon the world, upon all the things that happen to us,
and see the hand of God in everything, and live that, and teach it, and practice it.
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