Twenty-five or -six years ago I was in a very different place than where I am today. Recently divorced, finding my way back into active practice of my Catholic faith, and not at all sure how any of that might work out.

So I turned to this new and wondrous world of what they called “the internet.” That was where I found on online community of other Catholics, all sharing their knowledge and expertise on the right ways – and more importantly, the wrong ways – of being Catholic. There was no aspect of life or liturgy that I couldn’t find clear and decisive guidance on.

So when the local priest I’d been talking to raised the issue of an annulment, I was very skeptical. The Online Catholic Community was pretty definite that annulments were just another example of the corruption of the modern Church. Too easy. Pay a fee so they’ll look the other way. It waters down our tradition of the sanctity of marriage.

But the old priest gave me the paperwork and told me to pray on it. So I did.

Eventually, in the course of my prayers, I was presented with a question: I heard the Lord ask me, “Do you believe that my Church can do my will?”

It was a moment of clarity for me because it cut right to the heart of the matter. If I didn’t believe it, why bother with the Church at all? But if I did, why not trust the process? In the Church’s offer of redemption and healing?

This weekend is generally referred to as “Good Shepherd Sunday,” and the readings reflect Jesus as the eponymous “Good Shepherd.” But in today’s Gospel reading, Jesus identifies himself as the gate for the sheepfold, through which the Good Shepherd enters to tend his sheep. The Good Shepherd, in this case, being the Church which acts under the authority of Christ.

In our first reading from the Acts of the Apostles, we hear how Saint Peter – first Pope of the Catholic Church – takes the people to task for their role in Christ’s crucifixion. We’re told that when they heard this, they were cut to the heart. It wasn’t comfortable, but they had to come to terms with their own culpability and repent of their sins.

It’s a good reminder to us that when we hear the voice of the Good Shepherd – whether it’s in prayer, in Scripture, or through the teaching of the Church – sometimes it will be hard for us to hear. Sometimes it will be something we don’t want to hear.

Because the one who only reinforces what we already believe might make us feel better in the moment, but it’s not very helpful to us spiritually. Anyone who never tells us what we’d rather not hear is probably the thief or robber (or a politician?), climbing in over the fence.

A Gospel that never challenges us will never lead us out of our comfort zones.

If we are all the sheep in Jesus’s parable, the goal is to be led out into those verdant pastures promised us in the Psalm. But we’ll never get there if we don’t leave the comfort and security of that sheepfold. And the shepherds of the Church – our preachers, teachers, and clergy – are there to lead us through that gate, which is Jesus.

Because in that first reading, Saint Peter doesn’t just condemn the people and leave it at that. He goes on to preach to them the Good News of repentance, of forgiveness given before we even ask for it; the Good News of God’s infinite mercy.

If ever we have difficulty in discerning the Good Shepherds from the Thieves and Robbers clamoring for our attention – through the internet and other media and generally in the culture around us – we can always look to that message: to the message of a Good Shepherd, leading us with goodness and kindness, love and mercy, and the offer of abundant life.

Years ago I heard an interview on the radio. I don’t remember who it was being interviewed – if he was an author or a journalist or a social anthropologist or whatever. But he was someone with an interest in religion – not as a way of life but as a subject of academic study.

In this case, he was interested in the question of whether or not religion actually makes people better. He told the interviewer that he tried to find just one area, one aspect of life, where religious people were notably better than anyone else.

“Better” by what standard or criteria he didn’t make clear. But whatever it was, he didn’t seem to find it.

But he did mention that at one point during the study, he had some personal issues to deal with and mentioned that he found these religious communities to be very supportive at a time when he really needed it.

When pressed by the interviewer, he did admit that this sense of mutual support within a community was something he hasn’t really encountered in secular environments. But he never quite seemed to make the connection – he stepped over the very thing he had been looking for, and concluded there was nothing to find.

“See how these Christians love one another.” The second-century theologian Tertullian, writing during a time when Christianity was growing in popularity but was still something of a fringe group, kind of a cult in the eyes of the world, observed that this was what non-Christians noticed most about the early Church – that they were recognized especially for mutual love and support of the poor and needy.

Our first reading today from the Acts of the Apostles gives us a description of the earliest Christian communities. And at a time when our own churches are struggling, our diocese is restructuring, as we’re looking at upcoming changes in Mass times or priests being shuffled around; where religious practice in our society is lower than it’s ever been, it may be helpful to look back on the successes of that ancient Church. In particular, our reading today identifies four principles:

· They devoted themselves to the teaching of the apostles;

· And to the communal life,

· To the breaking of the bread;

· And to the prayers.

The Teachings of the Apostles we have still – and will always have - in the Scripture, and in the Traditions and teachings of the Church, passed on to us by the Pope and Bishops, who are successors to the apostles. So that’s a good baseline for any church community – as long as we stick with Scripture and Church teaching, we’re on solid foundation.

When we think of the Communal Life, we might think of it in terms of religious orders, or maybe radical movements like the Catholic Worker, of people forgoing worldly possessions in favor of a shared lifestyle. And that does seem to be what the earliest Christian communities practiced. We’re told in today’s reading that they would sell their property and possessions and divide them among all according to each one’s need.

Modern Catholic Social Teaching – that “teachings of the apostles” that we still devote ourselves to – does recognize each person’s right to private property. But with the caveat and the understanding that the gifts of God are meant to be enjoyed by all His people.

As generous as God has been with each of us, it is with the expectation that we will be as generous to those around us. Communal Living can simply mean being attentive to the needs of our neighbors, and being quick to respond with generosity.

The Breaking of the Bread is an obvious reference to the Eucharist. But there is something more there, too. In the early Church, the communities they are describing in Acts, the Eucharistic celebration was part of a larger meal which the congregation would take together. Over the centuries, we’ve separated the Eucharist out into a more ceremonial event, more reminiscent of sacrificial offering.

Nowadays we do our communal meals outside of the liturgy. We might gather for coffee and donuts after Mass, we hold suppers and potlucks and parish picnics throughout the year. The Eucharist unites us sacramentally as the Body of Christ, while these communal gatherings unite us socially as Brothers and Sisters in Christ.

And finally, we have Prayer, both public and private.

Saint Paul instructs us to “pray without ceasing,” and as with much of our faith life that may be more aspirational than practical. But it stands as something we can and should aspire to. Train ourselves to make every waking moment an opportunity for prayer. A brief thanksgiving when life spontaneously goes exactly as we want it to – or a prayer for patience when it doesn’t. That’s how we establish and uphold a relationship with God.

But we also pray together. Jesus tells us that whenever two or more gather in his name he is here among us, so it’s a good thing to take any opportunity we can to pray together as a community. They say that “the family that prays together stays together,” and it’s just as true of this Family of Sisters and Brothers in Christ.

There is a line from the musical Jesus Christ Superstar:

If you’d come today you could have reached a whole nation. Israel in 4 BC had no mass communication.

It’s maybe worth noting that this line is sung by Judas, questioning everything about Christ’s mission and how he’s been going about it.

The irony, of course, is that it’s pretty clear that Jesus did in fact reach not just a whole nation, but the whole world, centuries before the internet or television or even the printing press.

So how did he do that?

At the point of our Gospel reading tonight, as Mary Magdelene and “the Other Mary” come to the tomb, it’s safe to say there is the general feeling among the followers of Jesus that his Messianic movement was over.

History tells us of a few other Messianic movements back in those days, some of which got the same kind of traction and notoriety as Jesus’s, but they all tended to fizzle out at about this same point – these Messianic movements tended to die along with their presumed Messiah.

But this Jesus movement manages to recover, and to spread itself further and wider and more effectively than before. And it all begins with these two women at the tomb.

They are told that Jesus is alive, and to go and tell his disciples! Which they do.

And the disciples go on to tell others. In coming weeks we will read from the Acts of the Apostles, recounting how this small band of twelve managed to grow their movement, little by little, person by person.

Think back to how we began this Mass tonight. The Light of Christ, this Paschal candle, enters a darkened church. A few people light their own candles from its flame. They then turn and light their neighbors’ candles, who in turn light their neighbors’ candles, on and on, a fire into many flames divided yet never dimmed by sharing of its light.

Each of us at baptism received a little candle, similar to these we use tonight, even lit by the light of the Paschal Candle. For most of us, if we were baptized as children, it was given to our parents or godparents, entrusted to them to be kept burning brightly.

Jesus came as Light to the World, as a light that shines in the darkness, and the darkness could not overcome it. As dark as our world may seem sometimes, we have that Light of Christ still burning.

Tonight we hear about two women coming to a tomb to mourn a light to the world they believed had gone out. When they left, that light shone brighter than ever. They passed it on to the Disciples, who passed it on to those around them, and down through the centuries even to us, today.

We are reminded tonight of that light we keep with us, that light received at our baptism. And we are charged with the mission – in addition to keeping that light burning brightly we must spread it around.

They say you are what you eat.

Of course, they don’t mean that in a literal sense. We don’t find ourselves becoming a hamburger or a taco or a chicken piccata, based on what we had for dinner.

I read recently that the saying originated around 1826, with a French philosopher who said, “tell me what you eat and I’ll tell you what you are,” which seems to me to expand the concept a bit - not so much that we are what we eat, but that who we are can be affected by what we consume.

Certainly we know that a good and healthy diet is important for maintaining a good and healthy body. But I think it goes beyond that. If one aspires to be a great writer, one has to consume great writing. Likewise with artists, musicians, filmmakers, and so on. Healthy consumption for a healthy life is as much an intellectual and spiritual principle as it is physical.

As Catholics we might re-think the origins of that saying, “you are what you eat.” Looking back to the late fourth, early fifth century, Saint Augustine said of the Eucharist, “receive what you are and become what you receive, ” as a reminder that we who receive the Body of Christ become ourselves members of that same Body.

He gets this, of course, from the first-century theologian Saint Paul the Apostle, who said that we, though many, are one body because we partake of the one bread.

So as Catholics, saying “we are what we eat” is not just an old cliche’ – it’s a fundamental doctrine of our faith.

This evening we heard from John’s Gospel, which is unusual in several ways. John begins his Gospel by establishing Christ’s divinity as the Word of God who became flesh and dwelt among us.

Six chapters later, John presents that same Word made Flesh telling us that whoever eats his flesh, and drinks his blood, will have eternal life.

So John’s Gospel gives us the Biblical basis for our understanding of Jesus as Divine, and of the bread and wine of the Eucharist as the Body and Blood of Christ. And it gives us this reminder that what we consume affects what we are, spiritually and physically.

What John’s Gospel does not give us – which the other three Gospels all do – is Jesus instituting the Eucharist at the Last Supper.

We get that tonight from our second reading, from St. Paul’s letter to the Corinthians. It’s the narrative we hear at every Mass during the Eucharistic prayer – how Jesus took bread and, giving thanks, broke the bread and gave it to his disciples saying, take this all of you and eat it; this is my body which will be given up for you. And at the end of the meal he took the cup of wine and, giving thanks, gave it to his disciples saying, take this all of you and drink; this cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this in memory of me.

John’s Gospel doesn’t give us any of that. Instead, we get the story of Jesus washing his disciples’ feet. The divine Word of God made flesh, their Lord and Master, stoops to wash their feet. The Lord of All becomes servant to all. And he does so, as a model for us to follow.

If indeed we are what we eat, if we become what we receive, Jesus tonight gives us this reminder of what we must become.

They say you can’t have your cake and eat it too.

It’s kind of a curious saying. I’ve heard it suggested that it ought to be reversed: You can’t eat your cake and have it too. The reasoning, I suppose, being that if you have a cake you can eat it. But once you eat your cake, that’s it – you can’t have it any more.

But in any case, I think the meaning is pretty clear: that life is about choices. Column A or Column B. One or the other. Life is an either/or proposition.

Saint Paul gives us this kind of dichotomy in the second reading from Romans. Flesh or Spirit. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God, he says. But if we live in the Spirit we find life. Saint Paul seems to be suggesting that we can’t have our Flesh, and Spirit too.

But in these final days of Lent we shift from this “flesh and spirit” dichotomy into something much deeper and richer. We are reminded today that as Catholics our faith is not a matter of either/or, but of both/and.

Throughout Lent we fast - we deny ourselves certain treats, certain pleasures to turn our focus away from the Flesh; and we work on prayer to turn more toward the Spirit.

And we practice almsgiving, which unites the spirit and the flesh. This is where we turn aside from our own needs, our own selfishness and personal desires, and turn toward that love of God and Neighbor.

Because what this season is about is not the denial of the Flesh, but about finding the right balance. To let the Spirit guide the Flesh instead of the other way around.

God has created us to be a unity of body and soul, a harmony of flesh and spirit. And our readings today, just two weeks before our celebration of the Resurrection of our Lord, remind us that this is God’s plan for all of us: body and soul rejoined in the Resurrection of the Dead.

We might think of this time of Lent and Easter as a kind of encapsulation of our spiritual life – a life of working ourselves away from the selfish impulses of the Flesh and toward the generous guidance of the Spirit, as we look forward to the Resurrection, the ultimate fulfillment of all we hope for.

The Resurrection should serve to remind us that, for all St. Paul’s warnings against living in the flesh, “the Flesh” is not evil. It’s not a prison our soul escapes from. The impulses and desires of the Flesh can distract us from the Spirit, turn us away from God if we let them, but they are ultimately part of God’s design – part of what He created us to be.

When Jesus took on human flesh he sanctified us and all our human experience. He became like us so we could become like him – so like him we can be resurrected from the dead.

So it turns out we can have our Flesh, and Spirit too! This is the threefold promise we get in our readings today. Jesus gives us the assurance that whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live; Saint Paul says that the one who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also, through his Spirit dwelling in you. And Ezekiel gives us God’s solemn word: I have promised, and I will do it, says the Lord.

This is one of my favorite Gospel passages. John’s Gospel gives us a few of these extended one-on-one scenes with Jesus – more personal, more intimate than we get from the other three (the Synoptic) Gospels.

In the biblical commentaries and scholarship, a lot has been written about this Samaritan woman. Much is made of the fact that she comes to the well in the middle of the day, instead of in the morning when the other local women come for their water. As if she’s trying to avoid them.

We’re told that she has been married five times and now lives with a man she is not married to, so there is a general scholarly understanding that she probably has a reputation. She wants to avoid the gossip that buzzes around whenever she gathers with the other women of the village.

But then we find, by the end, she is announcing to all the village, “Come meet the man who told me everything I’ve ever done!”

It strikes me as being at odds with the idea of a woman ashamed of her own notoriety. I’ve always imagined some wag in the crowd remarking something to the effect that it doesn’t take a Messiah to tell everything she’s done.

And maybe that’s the real point.

Because this man who told her everything she’s ever done wasn’t mean about it. He didn’t scold her or put her down, didn’t shame her. Didn’t even tell her to go, and do not sin any more.

Instead, he spoke to her of the love of God. He offered her the grace of his life-giving water. He entrusted her with his mission, with his ministry, sending her forth to preach the Good News. He knew everything she had done in her life, but recognized that she is more than the sins she has committed.

We’re just about halfway through Lent now. Maybe we’re feeling good about how our Lenten practice and penance has been going. Or maybe we’re discouraged that we haven’t done better than we’d planned.

Hopefully we’ve taken the opportunity for the Sacrament of Confession, or plan to in the next couple weeks. And if it’s been a while, maybe we’re feeling discouraged about everything we have to confess.

And that’s where, maybe, today’s readings can give us some encouragement. Because Jesus, who already knows everything we’ve ever done, stands ready to wash it all away. That is the hope of the Gospel.

“And Hope does not disappoint,” Saint Paul tells us in the second reading, “because the love of God has been poured into our hearts.” That Living Water, the Love of God, the Waters of Baptism, poured into our hearts – this is what Jesus promises will become in us a spring of water welling up to eternal life.

And that is really what this season is all about, isn’t it? As we make our way through these forty days, our sights are set on what comes after, on the celebration of Easter.

As we move into this second half of the Lenten season, as we maybe renew our commitment to our Lenten sacrifices and spiritual practices, let’s remember the hope that guides us ever forward: that we look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.

Jesus in the Gospel today tells us that when salt loses its flavor, it is not good for anything except to be thrown on the ground and trampled underfoot. Though right now, in this February in Vermont, we might think that that’s one of its most beneficial uses.

We are the Salt of the Earth, He tells us; we are the Light of the World; and we are the City set on a mountain.

All familiar phrases, we’ve heard them repeated many times. So what do they mean?

Our first reading gives some context, and is a lot more straightforward about it. Thus says the Lord: Share your bread with the hungry, shelter the oppressed and the homeless; clothe the naked when you see them … then your light shall break forth like the dawn.

This is something we can see happening around us all the time. Think of our Popes, like Leo and Francis, or recent saints like Teresa of Calcutta. When Catholic leaders and personalities devote themselves to the poor and the oppressed, to doing good in the world, the World takes notice.

That is what Jesus means when he tells us to be the Light of the World. When we do as God commands us, when we treat others as we would want to be treated, we are shining God’s light into the darkness of the world. Those Good Works that Isaiah tells us about, they help people to see more clearly, to see the world as it should be, to see the world as God intended it to be.

Jesus gives us the reminder – and this always strikes me as a bit tongue-in-cheek – that we don’t light a lamp to hide it under a bushel basket. If we’re going to be the Light of the World we have to expect to be noticed.

And that notice might not always be a good thing.

The Catholic Church has had its share of scandal. Maybe more than its share. Right now our diocese is still trying to deal with the legal fallout from sins of the past.

Are there some opportunists out there, looking to cash in on misfortune? No doubt. But that is the price of drawing attention to oneself – of being in the spotlight. Of being that city set on a mountain that, for better and for worse, can’t be hidden.

It’s easy to cry “persecution” and dismiss it as the World just hating us because it hated Christ before us. But that’s too easy and not always entirely accurate. Because there have been real troubles in our Church. There are real sins, real crimes committed, real victims deserving of justice.

Because in the end we must acknowledge and understand that we are a Church of sinners. Each and every one of us, from the Pope on down to the lowliest lay person, we are all sinners, all in need of Christ’s redemption.

In need of that Light of Christ, which we shine into the dark spaces of the World, which we must at times turn also inward to the dark spaces in our own hearts, in our communities, in our institutions.

Through prayer, through examination of conscience, through regular Sacramental Confession, but also through those Works of Mercy that Isaiah lays out for us. The more we humble ourselves in the service of others, the more we too will see in the Light of Christ, ourselves as God intended us to be.

Because when we share our bread with the hungry, he tells us, when we shelter the oppressed and the homeless, then, he says, our light shall break forth like the dawn and our wounds shall be quickly healed.

In other words, the more we join in Christ’s mission to heal others, the more we too are healed.

“Once upon a time…”

A lot of old stories begin that way. Or, “Long ago, in a faraway land,” or more recently, “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…”

Those folk tales and legends and mythologies that begin like this exist somewhere apart from our own time, our own place. They take us out of our ordinary everyday experiences and into the magical land of Narnia or Middle Earth.

In our first reading, the prophet Isaiah seems to be looking into Mythological time, to a more hopeful time – a time outside of time. He prophesies of things that have yet to happen, but which are already assured by God.

He is also rooted in the present situation of the Assyrian oppression he and his fellow Israelites have been living through. The yoke that burdened them, the pole on their shoulder, the rod of the taskmaster – these symbols of their Assyrian oppression, these current realities Isaiah puts in the past tense, saying God has smashed them as on the day of Midian. Those who walked in darkness have seen a great light.

When he goes on to speak of the coming of the Messiah, it is in the present tense: A child is born to us, a son is given us! All this, Isaiah speaks about in God’s time – a time outside of time.

That might be why Luke’s Gospel account of Jesus’s birth begins by surrounding it with historical markers. In those days, he says, Caesar Augustus published a decree; while Quirinius was governor of Syria. And at this specific point in human history, Luke describes a rather ordinary and unremarkable event. A child is born; one of hundreds, probably, born that same day. It’s a humble and unremarkable birth.

The Christian author and philosopher CS Lewis once made the point that at the heart of Christianity is a myth that became fact. Our world, he observes, is full of ancient stories of sons of gods born to mortal women; we have myths of gods who die and come back to life again.

As Lewis says, “The old myth of the dying god, without ceasing to be myth, comes down from the heaven of legend and imagination to the earth of history. It happens-­‐at a particular date, in a particular place, followed by definable historical consequences.”

Here tonight we celebrate the Incarnation; that the Word of God has become flesh and dwelt among us. God has inserted himself into human history, to live as we live and to die as we die. To be part of our day-to-day, to experience the mundane ordinariness of life. So even the mundane and the ordinary are made sacred. Every part of our lives, every part of our world becomes tinged with the Divine because Christ Himself walked this earth and shared in our humanity.

We see this most clearly in the sacraments, but the sacraments are just the tip of the iceberg. They are the gateway through which we encounter Christ and receive his grace; and once received in this way we are opened up to all the other ways that Christ is present in our world.

When we receive the True Presence of Christ as bread and the wine of the Eucharist, we can then recognize His presence in every meal we share with one another. When a man and woman are united in Christ in sacramental marriage, they can recognize his sacred grace in every touch, every conversation, every joy and sorrow of their life together. The sacraments are how we claim our share in the divinity of Christ, who humbled himself to share in our humanity.

One thing I most appreciate about CS Lewis is that he never seemed to lose his sense of wonder at the old fables, tales, and mythologies. And he understood that when myth becomes reality, the myth is not diminished; rather, reality is transfigured.

In the time of Caesar Augustus, when Quirinius was governor of Syria, the Supreme Author of All Life and All Creation was born into this world as an infant. And he comes to us here, now, in the Sacrament, to bring us into his divine life. Let us pray that we never lose a sense of awe and wonder at what God has given us.

Pope Leo XIV released his first apostolic document on Friday, October 9, 2025, titled Dilexi Te (I Have Loved You): To All Christians on Love for the Poor. Begun by Pope Francis toward the end of his life, the document was completed and promulgated by Pope Leo who said,

I am happy to make this document my own – adding some reflections – and to issue it at the beginning of my own pontificate, since I share the desire of my beloved predecessor that all Christians come to appreciate the close connection between Christ’s love and his summons to care for the poor. [3]

There is much to savor in this document. These five points are just some of my own first impressions.

1. Care for the Poor is the Oldest and Deepest Tradition of Our Church.

The bulk of this document reads like an historical overview of the Church’s ministry to the poor. If at times it feels long and overstated, the point is made abundantly clear: there has never been a time in the history of the Church that ministry to the poor has not been a central factor in her faith life. Indeed, whenever we have seen a major spiritual renewal within the Church, it has renewed and re-centered her focus on the poor, the suffering, the outcast. “When the Church kneels beside a leper, a malnourished child, or an anonymous dying person,” the Pope says, “she fulfills her deepest vocation: to love the Lord where his is most disfigured.” [52]

2. It is “The Burning Heart of the Church’s Mission.”

Pope Leo says: “The fact that some dismiss or ridicule charitable works, as if they were an obsession on the part of a few and not the burning heart of the Church’s mission, convinces me of the need to go back and re-read the Gospel, lest we risk replacing it with the wisdom of this world.” [15]

The “burning heart” reference feels to me like a callback to Pope Francis’s prior Letter Dilexit Nos, in which he quotes St. Bonaventure that “we should not pray for light but for ‘raging fire,’” saying that “the knowledge that Christ died for us does not remain knowledge, but necessarily becomes affection, love.” [DN 26]

If indeed the new document is intentionally recalling this prior one, it makes for a perfect summation of the theme for the rest of the text: that service to the poor is that Raging Fire, the Burning Heart that takes our faith from mere intellectualism to an active relationship of love.

3. Christ Present in the Eucharist is Inseparable from Christ Present in the Poor.

About a third of the way into the document, the Pope gives us an extended quote by Saint John Chrysostom, whom he describes as “perhaps the most ardent preacher on social justice” of the early Church Fathers. Pope Leo presents what I believe is the longest block of quoted text in the document:

Do you wish to honor the body of Christ? Do not allow it to be despised in its members, that is, in the poor, who have no clothes to cover themselves. Do not honor Christ’s body here in church with silk fabrics, while outside you neglect it when it suffers from cold and nakedness… [The body of Christ on the altar] does not need cloaks, but pure souls; while the one outside needs much care. Let us therefore learn to think of and honor Christ as he wishes. For the most pleasing honor we can give to the one we want to venerate is that of doing what he himself desires, not what we devise…. So you too, give him the honor he has commanded, and let the poor benefit from your riches. God does not need golden vessels, but golden souls. [41]

The Pope makes it clear that “charity is not optional but is a requirement of true worship” [41]. It is where we can truly experience a relationship with the incarnate Christ. We can never truly love Christ in the Eucharist if we don’t first love him in the human flesh of the poor and suffering.

4. We Can’t Ignore Structural, or “Social” Sin.

The Pope challenges all Christians to recognize the ways in which our social, economic, and political structures often create and sustain the inequalities that lead to poverty, and to be a prophetic voice against these injustices. “We need to be increasingly committed to resolving the structural causes of poverty,” he says. [94]

He cites Pope Francis’s earlier definition of “social sin” from Dilexit Nos, as a “‘structure of sin’ within society, and is frequently ‘part of a dominant mindset that considers normal or reasonable what is merely selfishness and indifference. This then gives rise to social alienation.’ … A genuine form of alienation is present when we limit ourselves to theoretical excuses instead of seeking to resolve the concrete problems of those who suffer.” [93]

He challenges us to look beyond the explanations and talking points of a society crafted by the wealthy to protect their own interests, to look beyond our own personal comfort and convenience, and to appraise our social structures first and foremost by how they help or hinder the poorest and most vulnerable.

“We must continue, then, to denounce the ‘dictatorship of an economy that kills,’ and to recognize that ‘while the earnings of a minority are growing exponentially, so too is the gap separating the majority from the prosperity enjoyed by those happy few.” [92]

5. We Can’t Neglect the Personal Encounter.

Even as we tackle the social, economic, and political structures of poverty, it is vital that we never let “the Poor” become an abstraction of numbers and statistics. The Pope reminds us that the poor are “not a problem to be solved, but brothers and sisters to be welcomed.” [56] We need to encounter them as individuals, people with their own human dignity, their own needs and wants and dreams and desires.

No Christian can regard the poor simply as a societal problem; they are part of our “family.” They are “one of us.” Nor can our relationship to the poor be reduced to merely another ecclesial activity or function. In the words of the Aparecida Document, “we are asked to devote time to the poor, to give them loving attention, to listen to them with interest, to stand by them in difficult moments, choosing to spend hours, weeks, or years of our lives with them, and striving to transform their situations, starting from them. We cannot forget that this is what Jesus himself proposed in his actions and his words.” [104]

Pope Leo goes on to encourage a renewal of the ancient practice of almsgiving, “which nowadays,” he says, “is not looked upon favorably even among believers. Not only is it rarely practiced, but it is even at times disparaged.” [115] But it is, he tells us, the most direct way of achieving that basic human contact with the poor in our midst.

Almsgiving at least offers us a chance to halt before the poor, to look into their eyes, to touch them and share something of ourselves with them. In any event, almsgiving, however modest, brings a touch of pietas into a society otherwise marked by a frenetic pursuit of personal gain. [116]

Pope Leo has given us a firm reminder that our faith is not one of rules and dogma, but of a personal and intimate relationship with our incarnate God. “To enter into this great mystery,” he says, “we need to understand clearly that the Lord took on a flesh that hungers and thirsts, and experiences infirmity and imprisonment.” [110] He reinforces the basic truth once expressed by St. John Chrysostolm: that if we cannot find Christ in the poor, we can never know Him in the Eucharist. This prophetic call to be a poor church for the poor is the key to the spiritual renewal so desperately needed in our Church and in our world.

It is said that “beggars can’t be choosers.”

I’m reminded of a time, many years ago, when I was volunteering at a soup kitchen and one of the clients came up to me with the complaint: “I can’t eat this [expletive redacted].”

It stood out in my mind, in part, because earlier that day, at my regular job working at a lunch counter, I’d had a very similar complaint from a customer. It made me stop and think about these two men – the beggar and the paying customer – and my own reaction to each of their complaints. My job was the same in both cases: to give good food to those who need it. They both got what they came in for. There was no defect, nothing objectively wrong with the food we served. They just didn’t like it. I wondered: how is it fair that one gets special treatment, while the other is expected to be grateful for whatever he gets?

Our first reading today from Second Kings gives us the end of a longer, more involved story. If we go back a bit to the beginning of the chapter, we are introduced to Naaman – a foreign army commander who goes to Israel seeking a cure for his leprosy. When the prophet Elisha tells him to bathe seven times in the Jordan River, Naaman goes away angry. “I’ve got rivers at home, why did I come all this way just for this?”

But his servants calm him down. They say to him, “If this prophet had given you some big elaborate ritual, you’d do it. But here he has given you a simple and easy cure, shouldn’t you try it?”

The end result is what we hear in today’s reading. Naaman swallows his pride. He bathes himself in the Jordan and is cured. God does not hold his earlier ingratitude against him, but transforms it into gratitude.

In today’s Gospel we hear of Jesus healing some lepers. Only one gives thanks, but all ten are healed. Jesus doesn’t withhold his healing, doesn’t revoke it, doesn’t repossess His graces due to a lack of gratitude. What he gives, he gives freely to all.

Jesus does not distinguish between the beggar and the paying customer, because there is no payment for his graces. Our life, our health, our comforts and welfare, but also his own life on the cross, his body and blood here on the altar and in the Eucharist. He sustains both our physical and our spiritual well-being. There is no price we could pay, no exchange we could make, no remuneration that could come close to the value of what he gives us. In his eyes we are all equals – we are all beggars.

Saint Paul sums it up nicely, I think, when he says “if we are unfaithful, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself.” He cannot deny the healing, life-giving, saving power he offers us each and every day.

Still, everyone likes to be appreciated at least once in a while. Even Jesus called out those nine.

Gratitude is an important, perhaps a too-often overlooked virtue. But gratitude strengthens our relationships, it builds up our appreciation of one another. When we’re grateful, people like us more. We’re generally easier to get along with. It’s true of our relationships with other people, and it’s true of our relationship with God.

I said earlier that before God we are all beggars. But God in his kindness does not make us beg. His gifts, his graces, all his goodness is offered to us before we ask. While the world says that beggars can’t be choosers, God gives us the choice to accept his graces, or not; to respond with gratitude, or not.

Just this past week, Pope Leo released his first Apostolic Exhortation; Dilexi Te; “I Have Loved You,” in which he reminds us of a central, vital part of our Christian worship. Just as Christ gives of himself so freely to us, we must likewise give of ourselves to those in need: to the poor, the sick, the vulnerable, and the outcast. We must remember that we are all equal in God’s eyes and must treat one another as equals and give as generously as we have received. That is how our love of the Lord, our gratitude toward him, becomes real.

As with those ten lepers, Jesus gives us his blessings, his graces, his whole self, freely. The question for us, then, as we come forward to receive him, is: are we like those nine, who receive this great gift and just go on about our day? Or will we be that one, who recognizes what Christ has done for us and gives glory and thanks to God?

This wolf terrorized the people of Gubbio, killing their livestock and even people. And nothing they could do seemed effective against it.

So Francis, as the story goes, went to negotiate peace between the townsfolk and the wolf. The townsfolk would agree to feed the wolf, look after its basic needs, and the wolf would agree to leave them alone.

Bishop James Ruggieri, Bishop of Portland, Maine, recently spoke of this story on his podcast, Auspice Maria. Speaking on the topic of evangelization, Bishop Ruggieri made the point that we can regard secular culture in a similar fashion.

We can be like the townsfolk of Gubbio, living in constant state of fear of this cultural “Wolf,” or we can approach it as Saint Francis did.

“St. Francis shows another way,” the Bishop says. “He didn’t destroy the wolf. He converted the relationship between the wolf and the people.”

I recently read something interesting about this story of Francis and the Wolf of Gubbio (I tried to find the source to cite, but couldn’t come up with it). But it made the point that this story is not part of the Saint’s original biographic materials. It seems this story was added to later hagiographies, initially taking the place of the story of Francis’s visit to Sultan Al-Malik al-Kamil. In the middle of the Crusades, Francis reminded the Church of Christ’s call to love our enemies and he sought peace in the midst of war.

This historian I was reading seemed to think that in later years, as these holy wars continued, this story was uncomfortable and inconvenient and thus was replaced with an account of Francis taming a wolf.

Politicians like to distract us with their Culture Wars, but the Church, as Bishop Ruggieri reminds us, “doesn’t have to be afraid of the wolf, of secular culture,” nor of the cultural Other we are led to war against. Like Francis, “we are called to meet it with faith, with peace, with courage,” to meet it with Christ’s love.

It begins with loving our neighbor as ourself, with loving even those we might perceive as enemies.

As Dorothy Day said, “‘Love your enemies.’ That is the hardest saying of all. Please, Father in Heaven who made me, take away my heart of stone and give me a heart of flesh to love my enemy. It is a terrible thought — ‘we love God as much as the one we love the least.’”

Today’s Gospel parable always calls to mind the memory of my first trip to Haiti. That, I think, was my first real sense of the relationship described in the parable.

It’s a common thing, in preaching or in any study of the Biblical parables, to ask ourselves, who am I in this parable? And in this particular case of the wealthy man and the poor Lazarus, I could always honestly say, none of the above. I’ve never been in such an impoverished state as to long for the scraps that fall from the rich man’s table. But neither have I ever been much for fine linens or dining sumptuously each day.

But some time spent in Haiti really shifted my perspective on wealth and poverty. I came to realize how a simple accident of birth, a circumstance of geography, afforded me a wealth of benefits and privilege that I hadn’t recognized. I began to see that, on an international scale, we are the Rich Man with Haiti as the poor Lazarus at our gate.

Shortly before our return to the US, I was speaking with another missionary about the experience. She recalled her own first trip to Haiti and remarked that, when she returned to the US it was several months before she could pour a glass of water down the sink again. I found myself feeling a bit of disappointment in realizing that that time would, eventually, come.

Disappointment that we might eventually fall back into that complacency that Amos warns us against in the first reading. The complacency of the Rich Man, failing to notice the poverty at his doorstep.

These readings today serve to remind us that there is poverty all around us. We shouldn’t need to travel to different countries to find it. We only need to notice those around us.

Saint Teresa of Calcutta was once asked about the difference she found in serving the poor around the world, how the US, for example, was different from India.

She responded, There are many kinds of poverty. Even in countries where the economic situation seems to be a good one, there are expressions of poverty hidden in a deep place, such as the tremendous loneliness of people who have been abandoned and who are suffering.

She recalled the experience of visiting a home for the elderly, noticing how the residents were always watching the door waiting and hoping for a visitor.

She recounted how some of her Sisters of Charity took care of the body of a woman who had died in her apartment in New York City – a woman who had died alone, whom even the neighbors in her building knew nothing about.

Mother Teresa said, As far as I am concerned, the greatest suffering is to feel alone, unwanted, unloved.

As Christians we are called upon to give of ourselves – our time, talent, and treasure, and to offer it wherever it might do the most good. The Gospel today reminds us that we might not have to look any further than just outside our own door.

I don’t remember where I first came across this idea, but it has stayed with me whenever I reflect on this particular Gospel parable and the “great chasm” which Abraham says separates Lazarus from the Rich Man.

It’s been suggested that this great chasm is one of the Rich Man’s own making. It represents the distance he put in life between himself and the suffering Lazarus.

It was the work of a lifetime, creating that chasm which after death he could never cross. But during his lifetime it would have been a simple matter to close that rift with just an outstretched hand.

Pope Saint John Paul II, in a 2003 address to the Diplomatic Corps, said, “No to War! War is never inevitable. It is always a defeat for humanity.”

“War is always a defeat for humanity.” The line sticks with me, I think, because it speaks so concisely and so eloquently of the Hope that is at the heart of our Catholic faith - the Hope that God intends us to be better than we all too often are. We are made to be like him - “you have made him little less than a god,” the Psalmist says. We are called to strive through His grace “to be perfect, even as your heavenly Father is perfect,” and ultimately to live with Him in that Peaceable Kingdom where they shall not cause harm nor destroy.

And so in faith we strive, we grunt and we sweat, toward this final eternal end.

If we look at our life in this way, we can understand how our every failure to live in harmony with one another is a step backwards. Our every failure to love our neighbor as ourselves is a stumbling block on this earthly pilgrimage. Our every failure to love our enemies is an obstacle to overcome. It’s not easy. But it’s necessary. It is the work of our salvation.

A week ago we celebrated the Feast of the Victory of the Holy Cross, remembering that that Victory came not through domination, not through violence. The Victory of the Cross is the Defeat of Violence. We share in Christ’s Victory by uniting ourselves to His Cross — to his suffering. So uniting ourselves with the Violence only gives us a share in its defeat.

John Paul in his address contrasts the scourge of war, violence, and death, with a call to Life, Love, and Solidarity. In words more relevant today than ever, he speaks of “a world with a superabundance of information, but which paradoxically finds it so difficult to communicate and where living conditions are scandalously unequal,” and he reminds us that “it is important to spare no effort to ensure that everyone feels responsible for the growth and happiness of all.”

Matthew 25 tells us that the “goats,” those condemned at the final judgement, are condemned simply for their failure to do the basic Works of Mercy. What, then, might the judgement be upon those who actively pursue Works Against Mercy? Those who burn crops and bomb shelters, who pollute the waters, who imprison, injure, and kill? These Works of War are incompatible with what Christ calls us to; to feed and shelter, to clothe and care for.

We think of War as something big, as nation rising against nation. But the battle between love and hate, between mercy and violence, between good and evil, begins within each and every human heart. That’s where the battle is won.

As a child I really got into reading Greek Mythology. I just loved all those stories of heroes and monsters, and gods who were in many ways very different from the God I learned about in church.

Except there was this one story.

The gods Zeus and Hermes come to earth, disguised as peasants, and they enter a village looking for a meal and a place to stay. One house after another turns them away. All of them, except one old married couple who invite them in to share their meager food and sparse lodgings.

This ideal of Hospitality is a major theme in Ancient Greek literature. But the notion of the Olympian gods appearing in humble disguise like this was unusual – it always felt to me more Christian than Greek. Up to a point.

Up to two points, actually. At the end of the story, this old couple is turned into intertwining trees, growing together for ages to come. It’s a thing in Greek mythology, the gods reward people they like by turning them into vegetation. Their version of eternal life, perhaps.

But the other way this story departs from Christian thinking is when Zeus and Hermes show the couple the destroyed remains of the village – the divine retribution inflicted upon those who had treated them so inhospitably.

By contrast, we can look at an episode from Luke’s Gospel when Jesus and his disciples pass through a Samaritan village. That village too is inhospitable, refusing to welcome them. So James and John ask, Lord shall we call down fire from Heaven to consume them? Like Zeus and Hermes, the brothers want to call down divine wrath on this sin of inhospitality.

But Jesus rebukes them. He’s not that kind of God.

In fact, Jesus completely reverses our whole understanding of what it is to be God. In today’s Gospel he tells us, God did not send his son to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.

Saint Paul says that though he was in the form of God, Jesus did not regard equality with God something to be grasped.

That, of course, was the sin of Adam – to grasp at equality with God. Even now we still grasp at that godhead, trying to be stronger, faster, richer, more powerful, always wanting to put ourselves above all others. And all the while our God is saying, “Guys, I’m down here.”

He’s right here. In these words that we hear, in this bread we receive, he is present to us in forms so humble we might miss them if we’re not paying attention.

Mother Theresa of Calcutta would tell her novices, as they prepared to go minister to the poor, at Mass, watch how the priest handles the host, how tenderly he holds the Body of Christ. And remember too, when you encounter the poor in the streets, that is the same Body of Christ.

I think of that often, in my ministry as a deacon. One of my roles here on the altar, as a friend likes to put it, I “set the table and wash the dishes.” And in washing the dishes I have to remember that every crumb is Christ. We don’t just sweep Christ under the carpet or trample him underfoot. Mother Theresa and her Sisters of Charity in their own way looked after the crumbs of the Body of Christ. They look after the discarded, the trampled, the swept-away crumbs of humanity.

That is Jesus who emptied himself, coming in human likeness, found human in appearance, who humbled himself even unto death on a cross.

To be humbled, so that he might be exalted.

We celebrate today the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, as a reminder that it is in the humility of suffering and death that Christ is exalted. He shares our suffering, joins us in our mortality, so that we who suffer and die with him can also be exalted with him.

It’s the irony of our faith, foolishness in the eyes of the World, that the more we grasp at being like God, the further we find ourselves removed from the God who has already lowered himself us so that we can be raised up together.

A childhood memory. I don’t remember how old I was – maybe five or six - at least around the age to start taking notice of the Grownups and the kinds of odd and inexplicable things they do.

This was a big family dinner at a fancy restaurant – I expect it must have been my grandparents’ wedding anniversary. I was sitting at one end of the table with my Uncle Bob beside me. And I remember as the waiter came around Uncle Bob quietly requested that at the end of the meal the check should be brought to him.

I think it was the first time in my young life that the question of paying for a restaurant meal had come to my attention. But what really made this memory stick in my head was the upset it created at the end, when my grandfather came to realize that the bill had already been settled. My mother’s family was never much for raised voices or public displays of annoyance, but the family tension was evident, even to my young self at that time.

As an adult, working in retail and customer service, I’ve witnessed this dynamic on other occasions, as families or friends will often jostle with one another over who pays for the group. People, it seems, are eager to treat, but reluctant to be treated.

I wonder if this is a kind of contemporary version of what Jesus is talking about in today’s Gospel. If this competition to be the magnanimous benefactor is akin to trying to take the place of honor, whereas letting someone else pay for us feels like being demoted to a lower place?

Jesus goes on to invert this premise. He reminds us that it’s a good thing to be generous, to treat others, to give without thought of recompense. To be generous to those who couldn’t possibly reciprocate. And maybe that’s the sticking point.

We do tend to extend our hospitality most to those who could return the favor. There is, perhaps, a sense of pride in providing for others; and a sense of obligation in being provided for. And it’s uncomfortable to feel obligated; we naturally prefer to be in the benefactor’s role.

But Jesus calls us not to Pride but to Humility. Every one who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.

Jesus himself is, of course, the perfect example of the host he describes in the parable. He has invited us all to the banquet, this Eucharistic Banquet we are all here to enjoy as a precursor to the Heavenly Banquet he prepares for us, unworthy as we are.

Jesus is providing for us what we can never hope to repay.

And he is calling on us all to go and do likewise.

He does call us to be generous with our goods and our hospitality, to give to one another without counting the cost.

And that’s the key – without counting the cost.

We are indebted to Christ. He gives to us what we can never repay. There’s that uncomfortable sense of obligation.

But he also gives us a loophole.

What you do for the least of my brethren you do for me, he tells us. We can reciprocate our debt to him through humble and selfless generosity

I’ve always been fascinated by these promises Jesus gives us in the Gospels, these assurances of prayers answered.

For everyone who asks receives, He tells us in today’s Gospel.

As a child I remember reading in Matthew’s Gospel that where two or three are gathered in His name, whatever you ask in prayer shall be granted. Whatever you ask. That was certainly an intriguing idea for a young mind to ponder. But of course there is a vital caveat there which quickly occurred to me: that it’s very difficult to find someone else willing to join me in praying for my own selfish needs.

Not impossible. Certainly throughout history and even into our own time we can see examples of religious and even worldly leaders exploiting the good will and prayers of the people to serve their own personal gains. But six-year-old me never had that kind of charisma or influence.

And of course it goes against what Jesus is trying to tell us.

Jesus promises us that the Father in heaven will give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him. That’s another distinction from Matthew’s version, which says the Father will give good things to those who ask him. But God isn’t a vending-machine or a celestial Amazon Prime, delivering us our daily whims as we ask for them. Here Jesus promises us the Holy Spirit, who will teach us how to pray.

In our first reading, Abraham is learning how to pray – learning how to address God, testing the extent of God’s mercy. And praying for the welfare of a people he doesn’t know, but he entrusts to the Lord’s sense of justice. Abraham gives us a model here of working to align our will with God’s, to pray your kingdom come, your will be done, and to find our way to wanting what God wants.

As I reflect on this reading, I’m struck by the contrast of the prophet Jonah. When the people of Nineveh repented and God had mercy on them, Jonah was disappointed that the promised destruction had been averted. Maybe he was concerned about his professional reputation as a prophet, if his biggest prediction didn’t come true. But ultimately, Jonah was too focused on what he wanted and not what God wanted.

Notice in the parable Jesus gives us today, the petitioner who goes asking for bread in the middle of the night is not asking on his own behalf. A friend of mine has arrived at my house from a journey and I have nothing to offer him. He is asking not for his own needs, but for something he can share.

This, of course, is why Jesus structures the Lord’s Prayer as he does.

I was reading recently a reflection from Dorothy Day about how often she would skim over those first lines of the Lord’s Prayer and only truly engage with the part about give us each day our daily bread and forgive us our sins. And she would have to go back to the beginning again to pray it as Christ intended.

Father, hallowed be your name; your kingdom come. Give glory to our loving and generous God, and look eagerly toward the fulfilment of His Kingdom.

Because that is what keeps us from self-centered prayer. God’s Kingdom is about the good of all. And our prayer should reflect that.

This of course is why we all come together today in prayer. This is why we follow this homily with prayers on behalf of our church, our community, and our world. This is where we are reminded that we belong to each other. We are the Body of Christ, supporting each other in work and in prayer.

I had a pastor years ago who used to scold parishioners whenever their intercessory prayers were for an unspecified “special intention.” We can’t truly pray as a community if we don’t know the needs of the community. We can’t truly support one another in prayer if we don’t know what or whom we are praying for.

But I think the important point, as we come together today, is that we are all praying for each other. The more we are able to unite in prayer, the more we can expect our Father in heaven to give the good things we ask him for.

There is a kind of a delightful irony in today’s first reading.

This first reading is from chapter 30 of Deuteronomy – very near the end of the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Hebrew scriptures. Which is to say, it comes at the end of about three books’ worth of Jewish Law which Moses has given to his people.

And now he’s saying, but really, it’s not that complicated.

For this command that I enjoin on you today is not too mysterious and remote for you, he says.

It is not up in the sky, says the guy who spent forty days on a mountaintop so he could get it for them and tell them of it, that they may carry it out.

God’s command, he says, is very near to you, already in your mouths and in your hearts. You have only to carry it out.

You know what to do, you just need to do it.

But we humans have a tendency to over-think, to make things more complicated than they need to be. But what about … ? But what if … ? But did you consider … ? Give us a law, we look for a loophole.

Jesus reiterates the message in the Gospel reading. When a legal scholar (speaking of over-complicating) asks him, what must I do? Jesus answers, essentially, you tell me.

You’re a scholar of the law, what do you think it says?

The answer is simple enough. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.

And that’s it. That’s the Law of the Lord, already in our mouths and in our hearts. We have only to carry it out.

Maybe I could end my homily right there. But I’m going to over-think and complicate the question.

Mostly because that’s what the legal scholar does in the Gospel, firing back with another question. Seeking to justify himself he casts out for a loophole. But who is my neighbor?

So Jesus tells a story. And we all know the story. He tells the story and once again throws the question back to the scholar. Which one was neighbor to the victim?

The answer is so simple even a legal scholar could get it. The one who treated him with mercy. The one who was moved to compassion. Maybe that is the commandment of God that is already in our mouths and in our hearts.

I recall a time in college, coming home to Maine. It was a car full of students sharing a ride home for the holidays. The car broke down somewhere in Massachusetts along Route 95. In those days before cellphones we had to set off through the trees at the edge of the highway to find a house where we could make phone calls and let our parents know what had happened. And the people in this house were good enough to let us all sleep on their living room floor until our parents could arrive to bring us home.

I’m sure we can all think of similar stories, each from our own lives. Stories where we benefited from the kindness of strangers, as well as stories where we were the stranger helping someone in need. And I think that comes from that Law of God, that which is already in our hearts, waiting for us to carry it out.

I’m sure we can all remember too the times when we walked past the stranger in need, ignoring that tug of the heart, convincing ourselves that it’s none of my business, there’s nothing I can do right now. And those, I find, are the instances that tend to stay with us, that nag at our conscience long afterwards.

I find it interesting – and maybe this is me overthinking – interesting that when Jesus poses the question, who was neighbor to the man, the scholar notably does not answer, “the Samaritan.” He answers more obliquely. The one who did the right thing.

Jesus calls him a Samaritan, it’s the only identifying mark he gives the character. There’s a Priest, a Levite, and a Samaritan. But this scholar of the law doesn’t use that designation. As if maybe he can’t quite bring himself to speak well of a Samaritan.

We, through centuries of Christian history and Biblical study, have lost some cultural context. We’re too used to the phrase “Good Samaritan,” and tend to forget that the people of Jesus’s time would say that the only Good Samaritan is a dead Samaritan.

The Samaritan is that person you’d cross the street to avoid if you saw them coming. If you accidentally drove into a Samaritan neighborhood, you’d check to make sure your car doors are locked. You don’t have any Samaritan friends because they’re not the kind of person you’d associate with and they really can’t be trusted anyway.

I think if we’re being honest, we’ve all got some class of people we’d regard in that way - people we don’t know and are sure we don’t want to. These are the people, Jesus is telling us, who are our neighbors. The people we must love as we love ourselves.

Jesus is challenging us here, to put aside our prejudices. To ignore the inner voice that says it’s none of my business, I can’t do anything about it. When we see someone in need, when our hearts are moved with compassion, whenever we see an opportunity for mercy, Jesus is inviting us to recognize the opportunity to love our neighbor as ourselves.

God’s law is one of love, mercy, and compassion. Jesus shows us this love today – here in the Word, and in the Sacrament. And he sends us forth with the invitation to go and do likewise.

I’m a visual person.

My background is in film and television, a bit of theater, with a side of cartooning. So when I read something I’ll envision the scene playing itself out in my imagination. And today’s Gospel reading is a bit of a challenge to visualize.

The various movie versions of the Life of Christ seem never to know quite what to do with the scene. In the movie The Gospel According to St. Matthew by Pier Paolo Pasolini, Jesus just makes baskets full of bread appear out of nowhere. Another film, I forget which one, has bread falling out of the sky, literally raining down from Heaven.

But that’s not how it happens in the Gospel.

The Gospel reading is much more subtle. Jesus breaks the bread. The disciples distribute it. Everyone eats and is satisfied, and the leftovers fill twelve baskets.

I’m reminded of something a few years ago, when there were reports of a similar possible miracle at a parish in Connecticut. It’s reported that they were low on consecrated hosts, but after everyone received Communion they were left with more than they started with.

I’ve been in similar situations – not the miraculous multiplication of bread part, but situations of not being sure we’d have enough hosts for everyone present. I can only imagine what would go through the mind of a minister – or of a disciple. At what point do they start to think, hmm, more here than I thought? At what point do they think, hmm, something weird here? At what point do they realize, wow, this is an actual miracle?

Our celebration of the Eucharist is a little bit like that – a miracle unfolding in front of our eyes in a subtle and hidden way. At what point does bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ?

Does it happen at the Epiclesis, as the priest calls the Holy Spirit down upon the gifts? That’s what the instructor in my Sacramental Theology class believed; once invoked, why would the Spirit wait around for something more to happen? But that’s the very beginning of the Eucharistic prayer. So maybe it happens at the elevation when the words of institution – this is my body, this is my blood, etc. are invoked around the middle of the prayer? Or at the final doxology?

In fact all these moments are vital to the Sacrament, as is the prayer that connects them. You can’t really isolate any one moment from the others. I like to think of it, as the Second Eucharistic Prayer puts it, “like the dewfall” – something we don’t notice while it’s happening but by the end we know a change has taken place.

The same is true as we receive the Blessed Sacrament. In small, subtle, often imperceptible ways we are changed. Saint Augustine says we “become what we receive.” But gradually. The more we share in the Body of Christ, the more we become that same Body of Christ.

This is what Saint Paul tells us in the second reading. For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes.

A few lines later, Saint Paul goes on to say that whoever eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgement on himself. We are reminded to discern the Body of Christ in the Eucharist we receive; we are also reminded to discern that same Body of Christ in the assembly. All of us gathered here, we are the Body of Christ.

Looking at the larger context of this reading from Saint Paul, he is scolding the Corinthians for their divisions, the factions within their church. He is reminding them that their gathering is not just about eating and drinking our own little portion of the Sacrament. Do you not have houses in which you can eat and drink, he asks. If we’re not recognizing one another as members of the same Body of Christ, we might as well stay home and worship God in our own way.

There is a parallel here with the Gospel reading – the disciples want to dismiss the crowd so they can go find food and lodging, so they can all fend for themselves. But that is not Jesus’s way. Jesus gathers people to himself. He unites rather than divides. He heals those who need to be cured, and he feeds the people until all are satisfied.

And he sends us out, to be leaven for the world. There’s another gradual miracle. Mix some yeast into your bread dough and watch it, you probably won’t see much happening. But leave it for an hour and come back, you’ll notice the change.

That’s how we are called to bring God’s Kingdom into the World. To do for others what he has done for us, giving of ourselves as he has given himself to us.

A year or two ago I was sitting in as my wife was leading an RCIA class. In the course of the class, someone asked a question – one of those tricky theological points that I had a basic understanding of, but never quite grasped it well enough to confidently explain it to someone else. When the question was raised, my immediate thought was, I’m glad I’m not running this session.

And even as that thought crossed my mind my wife responded with, “I think I’ll let the Deacon take this one.”

Of course. It’s why I was there, after all, to field the trickier questions. So there was nothing for it but to offer the best answer I could give.

I don’t actually remember what I said. All I do remember is getting to the end of the explanation thinking to myself, wow, that was a good answer. I should mention here that this was not out of pride or self-congratulation. I was marveling at what had somehow just come out of my mouth. Without looking it up or rehearsing it or even stopping to think about what I was going to say, the words were just there when I needed them.

Perhaps we’ve all had some kind of experience like that – surprising ourselves with unexpectedly finding precisely the right words or exactly the right thing to do for the occasion.

That’s the Holy Spirit at work in our lives, as Jesus promises at the end of the Gospel today, that the Holy Spirit will teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you. The Holy Spirit is always there, reminding us of what we already know; sometimes even hitting us with a flash of inspiration out of the blue. Giving us what we need, when we need it.

We see this illustrated in dramatic fashion in our first reading, as the Apostles receive the Spirit as a mighty wind and tongues of fire and go out proclaiming the Good News in all the languages of the world.

We might read that and wonder, why does that not happen anymore? Why doesn’t the Spirit send us all out speaking different languages all over town? The answer, I think, is that He still does.

Since that first Pentecost, the Church has grown a bit from those first Twelve Apostles. The Church still proclaims the Good News in all languages because we have ministers and priests, churches and congregants throughout the world all speaking in their own native tongues. People from all walks of life, all manner of lifestyle and ideology, each with particular ways of expressing themselves.

Sometimes we might be tempted to close ourselves off from those who don’t sound like us. We look for those key words and phrases that identify someone from the Wrong Group, the Wrong Politics, the Wrong Social Standing. We need to open ourselves to the recognition that God’s Church is a Universal Church – that’s what the word “Catholic” means. People from all countries, cultures, all walks of life, each making God’s Word their own, each living it and proclaiming it in their own way. We are all part of the ongoing Pentecost.

It’s the point Saint Paul makes in the second reading: for in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body. Each of us, all of us, have our own particular part to play. God calls us each to be the best possible version of ourselves, and each of us is unique. The Church needs us all in our diversity. To each individual the manifestation of the Spirit is given for some benefit.

The Holy Spirit guides the Church, something like a Celestial Sage Manager1 guiding each of us in our own particular role. We might not always understand how that role fits in with the rest of the Church, but that’s okay. It’s a big Church and we only really need to focus on our own small part in it.

The Holy Spirit is always there; nudging, prompting, guiding, leading us further into God’s Love – his love for us and his love for those around us. The Spirit draws us all together in that Love, calls us into unity as a Church and as a community.

It’s not always easy to know or understand or recognize the Spirit’s guidance but through prayer and quiet contemplation we can begin to better sense where the Spirit is leading us in our lives. When we pray in the words of the Psalm, Lord send out your Spirit, when we open ourselves to the presence of that Spirit, then we join in God’s mission to renew the face of the Earth.

There is an old Peanuts comic strip in which Charlie Brown leaves his house in the morning, wondering what the rest of the gang is up to for the day. Then he stops and realizes, I’m always going to them to see what they’re doing. Maybe I should let them come to me this time. He sits down on the stoop in front of the house and says, I’m just going to sit right here until they come find me.

In the last panel it’s dark, Charlie Brown is still sitting on the stoop saying, well that was a day wasted.

It’s something I think we can all sympathize with, isn’t it? We all have those moments with our friends, our family, our loved ones, those moments of wanting to know that they’re as invested in the relationship as we are. Ideally we want a relationship that is give-and-take, where we’re both making some effort.

That is why we all come in to Church this weekend, right? This is our opportunity to give ourselves to that relationship with Christ.

It’s kind of interesting, isn’t it, that today’s Gospel reading takes us back a few weeks, back to a few days before Easter, back to the Last Supper. This Gospel reading begins by telling us that Judas has just left. So we know where we are in the narrative.

We know this is the beginning of the loneliest point in Jesus’s life. Judas has gone to betray him; the other disciples will sleep through his anguished prayers, then abandon him to arrest and execution.

We remember this, and so we come today, on a weekend morning when like the disciples we would rather be sleeping, we give this hour of our time to be with Him, who has given himself fully to us.

As we come to church, as we pray to God, as we work at having a relationship with Jesus, we may at times feel like Charlie Brown sitting on the stoop. We may find ourselves wondering, where is God? Why doesn’t he answer? Wondering if we’re wasting the day, waiting for the time when God will take us to heaven.

In popular imagination we tend to imagine at the end of our lives, at the end of time, we are taken up into heaven to be with God. But our second reading from Revelation speaks of God’s Holy City coming down from heaven to us. Behold, we are told, God’s dwelling is with the human race. He will dwell with them and they will be his people and God himself will always be with them as their God.

Revelation gives us the metaphor of a bride and bridegroom coming together in marriage. We, the Church, are the metaphorical Bride whom Christ the Bridegroom unites himself to.

In any marriage, of course, the couple at some point has to deal with the question of where they will live. Especially if they are each from a different region or town or state or country, there has to be some negotiation made through love where one will pack up and move to where the other is, or vice versa. In Revelation, we are told that after that wedding feast the Lamb will relocate – not just himself but his entire city – relocate to where we are to live with us forever.

This is how much God loves us, how much he wants to be with us. He takes on flesh in the person of Jesus Christ. He makes himself present on the altar as bread and wine. He waits for us here in the tabernacle, and even in our daily lives he is closer to us than we can ever know. Waiting only for us to notice, to acknowledge, to make some time for him.

And he asks one thing of us. As he prepares to go alone to his crucifixion and death he gives his disciples one final directive: Love one another as I have loved you. This is what he asks of us as well.

To make time for one another. To be present to one another. To give of ourselves to others as he gives himself to us. To not waste the day sitting on the stoop, but to go out and bring his love to a waiting world.