Wow! St. James really is challenging us in this week’s second reading. James, and his followers who wrote the letter we read today, is putting all the cards on the table. In fairly incendiary and at times even sarcastic language he is challenging us in the Jewish prophetic tradition to serve the poor: “If a brother or sister has nothing to wear and has no food for the day, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well,’ but you do not give them the necessities of the body, what good is it?” James tells us and he will go on being blunt to say, “faith without works is dead” (James 2:26).
Pope Francis, whose visit to the U.S. we look forward to, echoes this important need to understand where people are coming from, namely, that there are tangible, real, everyday concerns affecting people that we must understand when preaching the Gospel. “I see the church as a field hospital after battle.” Our Holy Father says, “It is useless to ask a seriously injured person if he has high cholesterol and about the level of his blood sugars! You have to heal his wounds. Then we can talk about everything else. Heal the wounds, heal the wounds….” (America Magazine, September 30, 2013). A field hospital after a battle is quite the image! It’s hard to hear the Gospel if your stomach is growling! It is hard to believe in the hope of Christ if the bill collector keeps calling. Though it may seem easy to say we love the poor, we must watch for the shoals of secular self-righteousness. Many often think that we can serve the poor like James challenges us, but then forget the second part: preach the Gospel!
My parents were baptized and raised as Catholics, left the Church as many do for reasons that many I’m sure can relate to. They did not re-enter and get Confirmed until their mid-forties, so my early upbringing was not religious, but it was filled with acts of weekly service. Years later, when I asked my father why he returned to the Catholicism of his youth, he said: “Catholicism is in your heart and mind I guess, but really, Elliot, it’s in your hands and back. It’s gotta be.” He knew that giving people sandwiches or volunteering at homeless shelters wasn’t enough; he had to treat the whole person—all the wounds Pope Francis is talking about, many of which are spiritual. Service is conversion! Cesar Chavez, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King Jr. all understood this: changing the world takes scriptural reflection and sacramental vision.
“Who do people say that I am?” Christ asks his disciples and challenges us. He too is throwing the gauntlet on the table. He is asking us, let’s make it plain, who am I to you? What do I mean to you? Today, the resurrected Christ is in the face of the stranger on the road to Emmaus. It is Jesus who is the immigrant so vilified in our politics. It is the Christ who is awaiting the return of her soldier son. It is Jesus whose house we will help rebuild on our Service on Saturdays trip. It is Jesus who visits the Office of Concern. It is Christ trying to keep the children occupied in the pew next to us.
My fiancé comes from the Presbyterian tradition, which has a lot to teach us, but she often comments how similar everyone is at her church. She describes Catholicism as “here comes everybody.” She is certainly right, here comes the sick, the healthy, the lonely, the worried, the excited, the young, the eccentric, the downright annoying, and when they come, they will ask us: Who do you say I am?
Enjoy the week.
I’ll be seeing you,
Elliot