• 

• 
• Readings for Sunday, October 25th

  The 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time

• Sunday Homily

  Today, I want to turn the clock back a few years and revisit a letter from Pope Benedict XVI. 

  
  

  Benedict was elected pope in April of 2005, following the death of his predecessor and close friend, Pope Saint John Paul II. 

  
  

  A few months later he published his first major encyclical letter. Encyclical means “encircling the world.” Meaning: it’s meant for everyone.

  
  

  In the media there was an expectation that Benedict’s first encyclical would have a disciplinary tone, cracking down on people who disagreed with Church teachings. 

  
  

  Benedict had just the opposite in mind. He focused on God’s love. His letter was Deus Caritas Est: God is Love. It was magnificent.

  
  

  And in it, he wrote that the Church has three basic tasks.

  
  

  We worship God

  
  

  We care for the poor

  
  

  We spread the Gospel

  
  

  Everything we do as the Church should relate to those three.

  
  

  Worshipping God

  
  

  Caring for the poor

  
  

  Spreading the Gospel

  
  

  I think it’s interesting that the three readings of today’s Mass relate to those three tasks.

  
  

  The Book of Exodus spells out God’s expectations for the Israelites who have just won their freedom for the first time. Now that they’re free, comes the extraordinary command to care for the weakest and most vulnerable people in society.

  
  

  “You shall not oppress aliens. For you yourselves were once strangers and foreigners.”

  
  

  You, Israel, were once a people new to the land in which you now live.

  
  

  That’s of monumental interest in our times considering the ongoing debate regarding immigration, keeping people out, deportations to countries other than their native homeland. This is so sad for the millions of refugees trying to flee Haiti, Ukraine, Africa and Central America right now.

  
  

  We can easily imagine how hard it is to make a new life, a decent life, when you leave your homeland and make your way to an entirely new country because in your native place life is so oppressive.

  
  

  What’s God’s teaching?  Take care of them.

  
  

  “Don’t wrong widows and orphans,” we heard. “Widows and orphans,” over time, came to be an all-embracing term for the most vulnerable people of the world, people with few or any rights. 

  
  

  There were many of them in ancient times. And far more millions today. 

  
  

  God says “be compassionate.” For “I am a compassionate God.” 

  
  

  Compassion: to “suffer with” - to suffer with them. To enter their psychological space. To find room in your heart for them. Because you were once in their shoes.

  
  

  St. Ambrose, the great 4th century Bishop of Milan, put it beautifully and succinctly, as Jesus did: “If you have two coats, one belongs to you...the other to the poor.”

  
  

  So, the reading from Exodus asks us to consider how willing we are to undertake care for the poor, a basic task of the Church. On Christmas Day in 2005, Pope Benedict asked that in Deus Caritas Est.

  
  

  ***

  
  

  His second point? The Church is about spreading God’s good news.

  
  

  St. Paul praises the Thessalonians because they’ve become a model Christian community. Through their commitment to Christ and through their joy, they’ve spread the good news of Jesus being raised from the dead.

  You’re a great example, he writes, to those still stuck in the worship of idols, who’ve yet to hear Good News.

  
  

  Well, friends, this isn’t an easy one for us because we’re so wired to privacy about our faith. We think it almost impolite to bring up the subject of religion.

  
  

  But sharing the faith is the greatest challenge the Church has today. 

  
  

  When we think of any parish we should ask: Are the activities of the parish prioritized in such a way that they bring people to Christ? 

  
  

  Because people need to hear the good news that Christ has been raised from the dead. And that this makes a difference in our lives. They need that hope.

  
  

  The wonderful gift of faith, our treasure, is meant to be given away. The spiritual reality is that when we share our faith with others it also grows in us.

  
  

  All our parish activities, and there are many, should flow from our desire to bring the Lord Himself to others.

  
  

  ***

  
  

  Finally, the Church worships. We worship the true God. 

  
  

  In the Gospel we heard, the Pharisees ‘test’ Jesus. 

  
  

  They ask: “What’s God’s greatest commandment?”

  
  

  Jesus is clear. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind...And love your neighbor as yourself.”

  
  

  He’s quoting two Old Testament commandments and joining them for the first time.

  
  

  We become members of the Church to love God and neighbor. This is worship. 

  
  

  The word “worship” is from an old English word: worth ship. What do you consider to be of the highest worth? 

  
  

  Everything in our lives, the way we live our lives, flows from how we answer that question.

  
  

  One form of worship is the Mass. And there’s a lot to the Mass. But one aspect of it is that it sets our vision so that when we leave here, we go out and love God and neighbor. 

  
  

  When you worship God who then do you love?  Everyone God loves.  And that’s everyone.

  
  

  When we do love every one God loves...that’s when we become a light to the rest of the world. And people will say, “Look how those Christians love one another,” as they did in ancient times. 

  
  

  Our love and our joy become a powerful force to bring people to Christ.

  
  

  The Church worships God

  
  

  We care for the poor

  
  

  We spread Good News

  
  

  Let’s keep doing all three.

• Download the homily

  • Homily for October 25th