Gospel:  Luke 14:1 and 7-14. Click here for Mass Readings for today.

Dear Friends,

‘DON’T FORGET THE POOR!’

Two young people decided that they wanted to meet God. So they started to climb this great mountain. Half way up, they passed a stranger heading down to the valley below. When they got to the top, the asked where they could find God. The answer they got was: did you not meet God going down the mountain to the valley below?

Pope Francis, a day or two after his election as Bishop of Rome (Successor of Peter), gave

Thumbs up! Francis, in Rio.

an interview to the media. He told them about the moments leading up to his election, when the votes were adding up and it looked like he would be chosen. A great friend of his, sitting next to him, a Brazilian Cardinal, leaned over to him and said ‘Don’t forget the poor!’ And then, tapping his head, Francis told the journalists that those words hit him there in his head.

But then again, Francis, or George Bergoglio as he was called, had never forgotten the poor. He took public transport to work from his little apartment where he lived as Archbishop in Buenos Aires. He lived in the heart of communities, and of the poor.

‘Invite the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind’, we hear in today’s story about the party Jesus was at. ‘Invite the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind’, he is saying to us around our table- be friends with, reach out to, walk alongside those who are addicted, those who have little money, who feel left out, who are isolated, who are lonely and afraid and questioning. ‘Don’t forget the poor!’

Francis at home with young people!

In our communities, in our gatherings for the breaking of bread, we are meant to break bread (be com-panions) with everyone in our community where we live, especially with those who need our presence and love.

Have we invited ‘the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind’ into the party of our young hearts? God is where they are. Are we?

Seamus.

P.S. I have the Pope.app for some weeks now. Find out what Francis did and said while at the World Youth Day Congress. Exciting witness and words to the young of the world. You can download ThePopeApp easily. If you find anything that captures you and your friends, let us know, in the Comment box below. Would love to hear from you. And if you were in Rio, even better! S

Gospel: Luke 14:1 and 7-14.  Reading 1: Ecclesiasticus 3:17-20, 28-29.  Reading 2: Hebrews 12:18-19, 22-24. Click here for Mass Readings for today.

Of Ladder, Jockeys, and Bicycle Wheels.

Climbers...

An American TV commentator said, some years ago, in words like these: ‘the greatest tragedy is not when you have a dream to get to the top and fail to reach it, but rather when you get to the top, that you find your dream was empty.’ For those who climb ladders in life, and who seek to pass out others, there’s a little message that they have not noted, in the Scriptures: namely, that you are already away ahead of every one else, and every one else is away ahead of you!,- in other words, that we are all of us Number One in the eyes of our Maker. No need to climb! You are there, already.

Jesus was watching carefully all the jockeying that went on among the people at the banquet. And thirty or more years after that, in the Christian communities, we know from other texts that indeed there was inequality of treatment of people, at the Eucharistic Assembly. The poor were left at the back, the rich brought up to the front: some had nothing to eat, others had plenty that they would not share.

But with Jesus, and in our Christian communities today, ‘the poor, the lame, the crippled and the blind’ were and are VIP’S. And what was amazing to the world of that time was to see all this concoction of people, -Jewish disciples of Jesus, Samaritan disciples (usually hated by the Jews), Gentiles, ‘Pagan’s (meaning from the countryside!), social outcasts, sick people, widows, orphans, crippled people, young and old, slaves and their masters or mistresses together,-  all of them sitting down together at the one table, slaves and free, men and women, Gentiles and Jews,- all gathered around and for the One Lord Jesus, to be energised by the fire in him for people.

A faith-community that's going places...

Bicycle Wheels?-  it could be an image of a Christian community, both in worship and in our daily living, where the Centre is Jesus Christ, the Risen Lord, where each is connected to that Centre, and together we go out to the edges, with strength from the Centre and support for one another.  ‘We are all one person in Christ,- no more Gentiles nor Jews, slave or free, male or female,- all one person in Christ.’ (St. Paul). We come into the Centre for strength, we go out from that Centre with energy to the edges and the margins of society, to serve and live what we have received.

In our parishes and communities, we are each Number One: the lowly are raised up, the mighty brought down to size, until every one is ‘a first-born’ child of God, loved as if the Only One.

The Gospel today is not about social graces and behaviours,- it’s about how humans live together, how Christian communities show to the world the dignity of each and the unity of all.

There are no ‘ladders’ in our communities. Just wheels,- people, radiating out from and with Christ to the world.

Are we Climbers?  Jockeys? Or Radiating Family?

Fr. Seamus

For a poem/reflection on today’s Gospel, entitled  ’Jockeys’,  click here  (from www.emptifulvessels.com, poem/reflections by Seamus Devitt C.Ss.R.)

seamus.devittcssr@gmail.com

P.S. Could you find a way to discuss this with even one other friend, and see what God’s word today is saying to you, where you are and as you are. That’s being ‘community’ already! And ‘where two or more are gathered in my name, there I am in the midst of them’ says Jesus to us.