Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time. Sept. 26th, 2010
Today we hear what lies at the very heart of being a faithful loving disciple of Jesus Christ, “What ever you did to the least of my brethren you did unto me and whatever you failed to do unto the least of my brethren you failed to do unto me.” In this we discover that the great sin of the rich man in today’s Gospel, was not that he was rich, for nowhere in the scriptures does Jesus condemn the mere possession of earthly goods as such, but that the rich man failed to use his riches to help another in need. Jesus harshly condemns all those who use their earthly goods in a selfish way. And so, the rich man was condemned because he failed to even take notice of the poor man Lazarus, who was definitely in need.
The rich man probably did nothing wrong as he amassed his fortune. He most likely wasn’t responsible for the wretched poverty of Lazarus, at least not in any direct way. And as far as we know, he didn’t take advantage of the situation to exploit Lazarus. Nevertheless, the rich man had a definite lifestyle. It might be summed up with the words, “he feasted magnificently.” In other words, he lived a mediocre life, spiritually speaking, by living solely for himself as if there was no judgment after death, no heaven or hell. He had completely forgotten the fact that we are not owners of what we have, but only administrators.
The rich man in the Gospel did not know how to use and share what God had blessed him with. The great St. Augustine, commenting on this parable, said that, “Lazarus was not received into heaven because he was poor, but because he was humble. And wealth itself was not what kept the rich man from eternal bliss. His punishment was for selfishness and disloyalty.”
The sadness of this story is even more increased when we realized that the rich man knew Lazarus by name and still did nothing. We know he knew Lazarus by name for the rich man tells Abraham to send “Lazarus” to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool his tongue. And he begs Abraham to send “Lazarus” to his father's house and to his five brothers, so that “Lazarus” may warn them, lest they too come to his place of torment.
Each one of us needs to have this parable of the rich man and Lazarus present in our memory; it must form our conscience. Too often, sadly, it is only when we are in need, that our faith and trust in God and concern about our eternal salvation become the most important things in our lives; yet, paradoxically, when we have enough and more than enough and are lying in our comfort, we can become as the book of Amos says, complacent. In our complacency the last thing on our mind is our eternal salvation, not to mention the salvation of our neighbor…God himself becomes a mere afterthought. It seems the more we have, the more selfish we can become, and so the more our poor brother and sister become forgotten.
Christ however, doesn't call us to mediocrity; He wants our love, all of it. He wants us. And He demands from us, as a matter of love, openness to our brothers and sisters in need, whoever they may be. Whether they be materially rich or poor, economically advantaged or disadvantaged, whether they are the affluent of society or the most vulnerable in our society such as the unborn, the disabled, the sick and the elderly; no matter the case, we are to look to their needs in order to show our love for God and our faithfulness to Him. This brings up a most important point. There is a group of people that we are to care for even more than those just mentioned, people that we need to “feed” most of all. Who are they?
Mother Theresa, champion of the poor, gives us the answer. She said that the poorest souls she ever encountered, even more so than poor in Calcutta, were souls within the affluent countries of the world including these very United States. While most of these souls here don’t lack material goods (in fact most are quite wealthy materially speaking) what they do lack is something much greater and that is lack of knowledge of the Love of Jesus Christ. They have tried to replace the love of Jesus with love for the things of this world and so are starving for His love. For her, these are the poorest of the poor.
Everyone is looking for love, but so many don't know where to find the source of authentic love. The only source of Authentic love is Jesus Christ. Our greatest mission as believing Catholics is to bring Christ's love and so his truth, to those who are starving for it, many of whom don’t even know it. We must love them for love of God. We are to bring his love to all our poor brothers and sisters, whether they be materially poor or rich and in doing so bring them to Jesus. In this we really care for them and for their salvation and tend to our own salvation as well. Everything we are and everything we possess, even our very lives, are to be used to help others get to heaven that is if we ourselves are to make it.
But before we can bring Jesus’ love to the poor and lead the poor to Him, we must first discover the source of the living water of God's love and draw near in order to quench our own great thirst for God's love. And the source is of this living water is the Holy Eucharist-the very person of Jesus, who is the Love of the Father.
Mother Theresa once said to her sisters, “We can’t bring Jesus and His love to others if we don’t first recognize that Jesus is truly present among us in the Holy Eucharist.” And she told her sisters, that we can’t lead others to the love of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist unless we ourselves first come in contact with Him there—frequently, drawing from His Eucharistic Heart the living waters of His love, and returning to Him the gift of our love, the gift of our self. Once we realize through faith that the Eucharist is Jesus, is God the very source of all love, then we will realize as did Mother Theresa and all the saints, that the truly poor of this world, the poorest of the poor, are those who do not know the love of Jesus and that this love is available in the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar.
The rich man knew Lazarus by name, and yet he did not give Him food. We too know so many modern day Lazarus’ by name; they may bear the name of our parents, our brothers and sisters, our children, co-workers and friends; Lazarus’ that do not know the truth that the food for which they are starving for is the food of the Holy Eucharist which is the very Love of God the Father.
The Eucharist is by far the greatest of all riches. Because we have the Eucharist, we are really the richest of rich men. As a result we just can’t allow ourselves to be like the rich man in the Gospel and live a mediocre live. We can't fail to give the Lazarus’ of our lives what they need most in this world the Love of God. We must bring them this Love of God, God Himself alive in our hearts because we have become one with Him through our Belief, adoration, hope and love of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist. The truly poor of this world, those who don't know God's love, must experience Jesus and His love alive in us. We are called to be faithful disciples, that is...Ministers of God's Love.
Once again, this is why we must as faithful disciples of our Lord support our Parish family and its mission of not only leading its families to holiness and so to heaven. We begin to fulfill this great mission by our sacrificial gift of our time, talent and treasure. But not only for ourselves and families' own spiritual well being, but so that we can faithful to the other part of our mission as a Parish family, which is to bring the love and truth of Christ, we receive in the Holy Eucharist, out into our world, and share with others, through our holiness of life. We are to be other Christ's not only to one another but to all we come into contact with in our daily lives.
At this Holy Mass, which is the Sacrament of Charity, let us turn to our Mother Mary, who is Mother of all the poor, to pray for us and help us to more fully accept in faith, God’s gift of the Holy Eucharist. Blessed Mother, help us to realize that because we have Jesus in the Holy Eucharist we are truly the richest of the rich. Feeding on this Sacrament of Charity at the Holy Mass, help us to first love Jesus over and above all things by offering ourselves fully and completely to Him. And then, being filled with the richness of His love, help us to share His love with the truly poor around us, whoever they may be, leading them to feed as well on the feast of God’s love, the Wedding feast of the Lamb, in which Jesus the Bridegroom gives Himself as our food in order to be one with us; He living in us and we in Him. Amen.
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