Good morning, everyone! How absolutely delighted I am to be here today to celebrate this Thursday weekday Mass with you. Thanks to Father Jon and Mr. Steele and his excellent team - the faculty, staff, volunteers, and benefactors who sustain the mission of this high school in the Birmingham Metro. Thanks also to Father Daniel Sessions, an alumnus of John Carroll, who next week will be headed back to Rome to complete his degree in Canon Law at the Gregorian University there.

We have a marvelous opportunity today to reflect on so many things. There is such positive momentum in the improvements made to the sports fields where we can be even prouder of the accomplishments of this academic institution for its investment in the future of our students. The mission of forming young men and women in mind, heart, body, and soul is an enormous undertaking that takes all of us aligning with the mission. As such, we can already see some positive fruit of our endeavors.

In addition, we also are also painfully aware that life, which we believe should be cherished and loved, is fragile in the face of evil. Yet, as Christians, we don’t respond to evil with evil, but, at the direction of St Paul, we strive to allow the good to overcome, overwhelm the evil and darkness that is around us. That is what Christ died for and rose for. As Christians who pursue the good, the true, the beautiful, the free, we aim to be protagonists in living the freedom of being fully alive - a son or daughter of God who has an amazing future and destiny awaiting us. Let’s see how the readings open up this thought and inform and inspire us today.

Right off the bat, we meet two people whose lives are turned upside down by the mercy of God. First, St. Paul, in his letter to Timothy, admits he wasn’t always the saint we honor. He calls himself “the foremost of sinners”—a man who once persecuted Christians. And yet, God’s mercy turned his life around and gave him a mission. Second, in the Gospel, we hear of the woman who anoints Jesus’ feet with tears, dries them with her hair and anoints them with an expensive perfume. That must have been quite a sight! The Pharisees, the teachers of the law, only see her failures, but Jesus sees her love, her heart, her faith. Both Paul and this woman became credible witnesses not because they were perfect, but because they, touched by mercy, let Christ change them from the inside out.

Now, let’s be real: the world around us often pushes us to settle for the minimum—just do enough to get by, check the boxes, keep up appearances. Say that to your coach, “I’ll only do what I need to get by.” How long would you last on the team? At school, maybe that means just aiming for a passing grade, staying invisible in the crowd, or avoiding challenges so life feels “safe,” but Christ calls us to something bigger - not minimum standards, but maximum love. He wants all of us: our mind, heart, body, and soul. He wants us to be “all in” in life He’s given us, and He doesn’t want us to settle for some little thing just to get by!

With our mind, we learn not only facts and skills, but also how to think with truth, how to employ reason and logic, how to see the world through God’s eyes where faith is a logical extension of reason.

With our heart, we grow in compassion, friendship, and courage, like the woman in the Gospel who wasn’t afraid to risk judgment to show her love for Jesus. We, too, demonstrate our love for the least and lost in our communities through our volunteer service; to accompany those who need a helping hand.

With our body, we show discipline, respect, and service because how we carry ourselves matters – Theology of the Body shows how we respect this gift of God that’s made in His image and likeness.

With our soul, we stay rooted in prayer, in the sacraments, in God’s presence that gives us the true freedom we are longing for.

Freedom isn’t doing whatever we want; that just leaves us trapped by our impulses and by what others think. Real freedom is living in Christ, becoming fully ourselves, and standing strong in a world that often wants us to conform.

So, how do we become credible witnesses today? At school, it might be refusing to laugh when someone is mocked or being the friend who actually listens. In society, it could be standing for honesty, kindness, and integrity when shortcuts seem easier. In our culture, it means not avoiding our faith but living it in such a way that shows others, “Yes, being a Christian makes me more alive, more free, not less,” just like the early Christians who impressed others not because they imposed it on others but because the way they lived was much more attractive.

Paul was credible because he let Jesus write a new story in his life. The woman was credible because her love was authentic, not fake. You and I can be protagonists—leaders, not followers—when we give Christ our entire selves and let His mercy transform us from the inside out. Today, we have the newly minted young saints, St. Carlo Acutis and St. Pier Giorgio Frassati. They were protagonists in their communities in their time because they didn’t live just to get by, but they aimed their focus “to the heights.”

So today, don’t aim for the bare minimum just to get by. We already have that too much in our world and in our faith community. Let’s aim for the maximum – like St. Pier Giorgio. We aim for the heights: a humanity that doesn’t settle for just a little. We aim for maximum love, maximum joy, maximum freedom, maximum witness because the world doesn’t need more “average.” We are either protagonists or nobodies. The world needs you—credible, courageous, and alive in Christ. Amen.