Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Fr. Anthony Brankin
Many years ago I used to say Mass for Mother Theresa’s Sisters—the Missionaries of Charity. There were about twenty of these sisters in their little convent on the West Side of Chicago. I would get there every Friday morning about five minutes before 7:00 and we would celebrate a nice simple Mass. Of course, the sisters had already been up for hours saying their prayers—praying the psalms and doing their own spiritual reading and meditation. And then after Mass, they would have breakfast—and soon—like soldiers going silently off to war—they went out into the neighborhood to bring the love of Christ to the poorest of the poor. This was their charisma. This is what they did—go out to the poorest among us and give them God. And they themselves were poor.
Each sister had only two saris—their habit—and a bucket. They were to be ready to move to the next mission in twenty minutes—if they were called. It was quite a neighborhood in which lived and worked. Surrounded by public housing or abandoned homes and burned out buildings, they would go into the high-rises—and search out the sick and hungry and dying. They would literally clothe the naked and feed the poor. But not the least of the things they would do (and the reason they went into these difficult places) was to tell the people about Jesus who loved them—and where they might find Him—even in the middle of their squalor and poverty. This was actually a dangerous mission. In fact they would stop about one o’clock every afternoon and go back to the convent—because by then, some of the more problematic of the high rise dwellers would start drinking and doing drugs. The Sisters would be putting their lives at risk for no good reason. So they would come home—certainly to lunch and then more prayer and maybe even some recreation. But it was obvious that as much as they were focused and intent on their mission to take care of the poor— they made sure that prayer and sacrament and sacrifice were woven all throughout their day. They knew—as surely as anyone could know—that they would never be able to do the least thing for poor people if they did not have the strength of Jesus—the love of Christ—the impulsion of the Holy Spirit encouraging them and inspiring them.
More prayer than work
They were fortified by hours prayer and meditation and the Holy Eucharist—the very Body of Christ. I would believe that they prayed more hours than they worked. Because they knew that if they did not pray for themselves and for their people, they would only end up hurting them. Their priorities are first holiness—and secondly the mission. They are very aware that there will be no mission—there will be no taking care of the hungry and cold and infirm bodies of poor people unless they nourish themselves first with the Body of Christ. That’s the way it must be. Helping the poor begins in holiness and faith and practice. Even today—in all of their chapels—above the main altar—is a crucifix—very traditional and beautiful— and somewhere on the wall nearby are affixed the words “I Thirst.” These are some of the last words of Our Savior. And it is clear that the Missionaries of Charity know they are ministering to Our Lord in their ministry to the poor. And what they do—is for Him—and Him alone.
I mention this because all you hear now—all the time—from Bishops and priests in league with politicians is about taking care of the poor as if that was the message of Christ and the purpose of the Church and the point of our lives. This crowd spares no effort to insult believers and Mass goers and simple Catholic people—most of whom are pretty poor themselves. They insinuate that Catholics who spend time praying are hypocrites who do not help the poor. Well excuse me, but taking care of the poor is exactly what believers and holy people and good Catholics have done for two thousand years. Catholics have understood for two thousand years that Faith in God always was and always will be first. The hunger in stomachs will be satisfied when the hunger in the souls is fed. Those who purport to take care of the poor without supernatural faith and these would-be atheists or agnostics or masons—and not a good Catholic among them are the big city mayors and liberation theologians—and radical bishops—all progressives and Communists and the Socialists—well they end up hurting the poor— more than if they had left them alone.
Food can never be first. Jesus must be. Or the food will rot in our stomachs. Let me give an example, when we see Jesus working the Miracles of the Loaves and Fishes we see two things happening. First of all Jesus multiplies the loaves and fishes miraculously to prove that He is God and that He teaches with the Authority of God. Yes, a real miracle took place. A genuine wonder. The loaves and fishes kept multiplying—and everyone saw it and everyone was amazed and everyone had to conclude that this Jesus was someone special—maybe even from God. And so, after Our Lord gets their attention with the miracle—He then gives the real lesson—that the food we should be striving after is spiritual—not loaves and fishes but His Body and Blood as our real food and drink. The Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes is actually about Holy Communion—the Eucharist—the food that lasts forever and helps us to the next life. Holy Communion is the food by which we nurture ourselves in holiness. And as we are grow in holiness—we do holy deeds—like taking care of the poor.
The superficial modernists say that there was no real miracle. (They don’t believe in the supernatural anyway.) The modernists will say that all that happened was that Jesus inspired everyone to share the food they had— and so we must share our food with the poor. I am sorry. That explanation is foolish. And it certainly is not enough—either for me to believe in Jesus or to believe I should help the poor. They totally miss Jesus’ point and tell us the parable is about sharing food. They use poverty and feeding the hungry as a means to accumulate more power for themselves and they try to persuade us that if we hand over everything we own to the government, then they, the politicians, can distribute it all in our name. They pretend they are eliminating poverty, but are actually manipulating us to their control. There will be no eliminating of poverty anytime soon. We have it on the authority of Jesus Himself that we shall always have the poor with us.
The Missionaries of Charity taught this priest many years ago the same lesson that Jesus taught that when God is first loved, then we can love others. So when we hear—from the politicians and clerics—Poverty! Poverty! Poverty! Like it is a god or something, that is the false cry of false hearts. Listen instead to Jesus! who assures us that the hungry will be fed and the naked will be clothed and the afflicted will be comforted and the sick shall be healed—but only when first the Gospel is preached to them. Everyone will have their ration of bread and fish once they have had their souls full of the Body and Blood of Christ.