To your own self be true
Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time (A), February 9, 2014 – Is 58, 7-10; 1 Cor 2, 1-5; Mt 5, 13-16
You are Christ’s (1 Cor 3, 23)
Jesus makes known, by his life and message, that to be his disciple means to help the needy. The Christian who does not care about the poor is as worthless as the tasteless salt or a lit lamp that is put under a bushel basket.
The Master himself is full of compassion. He is moved with pity at the sight of the crowds, troubled and abandoned like sheep without a shepherd. Hence, he goes about doing good: he teaches in synagogues and proclaims the good news to the poor; he cures every disease and illness, so that the blind regain their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear and the dead are raised; risking his purity and reputation, he shows mercy and friendship to those who are considered public sinners and enemies; he multiplies loaves and fish, so as not to send his listeners away hungry, for fear they may collapse on the way.
So then, Jesus shows he belongs as much to the poor as to the Father. And we who claim to be disciples must consider ourselves to be as much his as the poor’s, and have our Teacher’s compassion. Our compassion will be proven genuine and radiant through the concrete ways we put into practice the prophetic instruction: “Share your bread with the hungry, shelter the oppressed and the homeless; clothe the naked when you see them, and do not turn your back on your own.”
We are forbidden to be just “caricatures of Christians.” It is our duty to help the poor in every way, by words and works, comforting them, providing for their spiritual and temporal needs, and to see to it that others help them likewise. We will surely discover the concrete ways of effective compassion if we remain sensitive to the promptings of the Spirit and attentive to the instructions of Providence, asking ourselves time and again, “What would Jesus do if he were in my place?”
Our concrete way can be as easy as a passerby’s yes with a smile that warms up a homeless person, shivering in the cold on street, or as difficult as the resounding no that Bishop Schraven, C.M., and his colleagues gave to abusers. In any case, if indeed we love beyond eloquent and wise words, our love will get to be, by God’s grace, as inventive as the love of the one who deigned to give us the Eucharist.
And strengthened by the Body and Blood of Christ, we who make up the Church will become, during our pilgrimage, like the salt that preserves and gives taste to life, or like the Holy City that is set on top of a mountain so that it cannot be hidden.
Ross Reyes Dizon
Tags: A Vincentian reading of the Sunday readings, Schraven