For weeks now I’ve been running a blurb in the bulletin from Saint Ignatius that says “If our Church is not marked by care for the poor, the oppressed, the hungry, then we are guilty of heresy.” I love that quote - cause it’s uncomfortable.
The Word of God proclaims that to us this week. But we grow complacent in hearing it - like the rich man in the Gospel. What would it take to shake us out of our complacency?
I think it takes faith. Starting with me. Faith to live out what we say we believe. Now some elements of our faith are difficult to articulate or explain - But caring for the poor, loving the poor, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked - those things are pretty easy to understand - and yet how magnanimously we fail to do them.
Wealth didn’t condemn the rich man to hell - complacency did, failing to see and respond to the needs of those in front of him did. If we too aren’t responding to those needs right in front of us with all that we are, then we are in the same boat as he was.
Today is a good wakeup call for us. We need to re-center ourselves, our families, our Parish on what we are really supposed to be about here - with our time, our talent, our money - to put our faith into action in real and concrete ways; in lavish and limitless ways. And to repent from everything else. God help us all. +
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