19th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Fr. Simham)

I want you to observe one strange thing happening in the Gospel. Jesus is in the midst of an important discourse on the Eucharist about bread of life. How it is better than manna and how it is going to give them eternal life and so on. These are truth of profound nature that are being taught. When this is going on what does some of the people do? Look at the gospel; one is whispering into the ear of the other “Surely this is Jesus son of Joseph, We know his Father, we know his mother, ….bla….bla …bla” What do you call this? Gospel says “they were complaining.” May be because the evangelist did not get the right word for it. Pope calls this as Gossiping.

Few years back on the eve of Christmas Pope addressed the Roman Curia and listed about 15 ailments with which the Roman Curia is suffering. They are the common diseases with which not only the curia but all of suffer. One of those ailments is Gossiping. Gossiping is something which is found among those who consider themselves as good Christians. Pope warns, it may begin as simple chat about a third person but it may end up as a cold blooded murder. Beware of the terrorism of Gossip.  It is more dangerous than Al-Qaeda or ISIS.

My dear brothers and sisters, today I thought I can break the silence of this most common aliment with which most of us suffer from. What is a gossip? A Sociology book says on an average every individual speaks about 18,000 words a day – a lot more than that. A lot of those words are not really very important, as we all know, so it’s not surprising that we all fall into gossip at one time or another.

Gossip is careless talk against people and about people in their absence. Moral theologians define gossip as defamation. When we gossip, we destroy the good name of another person. We “defame” them. The theologians also distinguish two kinds of defamation.

1. Detraction or slander is the unjust or unfair revelation of another person’s real but hidden or secret faults. If I tell to my friends about the past secrets of a friend of mine too, that’s slander.

2. The other kind is calumny which is the untruthful imputing of some faults to another which he did not actually commit.

St. Thomas says: “It is a serious matter to gossip and take away the good name of another, because among our temporal possessions nothing is more precious than our good name. If we do not have a good name, we are prevented from doing many good things. Therefore, it is said: take care of your good name, for this will be a more lasting possession than a thousand valuable and precious treasures. Therefore, killing this good name through detraction or gossip is grievously sinful.”

Psychologists and Social Scientists say that there are four kinds of gossip. Four reasons why we gossip.

1.The first is Angry gossip. Suppressed anger is one of the most common causes of malicious gossip. People cannot admit to themselves that they are angry nor can they express their anger directly and still keep their dignity so they let their anger out in malicious gossip. To cure this is to discharge it in a harmless manner and get busy about something else.

2.The second biggest cause gossip is envy. When we have feelings of discontent and ill-will because of other people’s advantages or possessions, we are showing signs of envy.  Envious people often resort to Envious gossip with the clear intention of damaging the other person’s name or reputation. Such envious people are not really happy. Their very act of gossiping only serves to increase their feelings of self-hatred. Actually, they want to be like them but they are not free.

3.The third is Entertaining or Amusing Gossip. Some people feel they have to gossip in order to be entertaining. They try to give impression that they have access to private information. They gossip only to be admired and according to experts, their gossip is really just a kind of compensation for low self-esteem.

4. The last one is Insecure Gossip that tries to impress us with its importance by approaching us with a juicy tidbit of gossip. Usually these people have few real friends. They regard all others as potential enemies. Gossips who act in this way are basically insecure. They have an obsession to be liked. This is the only way they have of feeling safe.

The point is that, murmuring, talking so much and gossip do not solve the situation. Let us stop doing all these and identify the root cause our disease and talk to God and in this sense we may be able to discover enlightenment and grace. That we may be aware of this terrible disease that kills our spiritual life and our communal life. Amen

Fr. Showreelu Simham