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20th Sunday of Ordinary Time

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Fr. Chad VanHoose August 19, 2018

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God has cast down the mighty from their thrones and has lifted up the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things and the rich He has sent away empty. This, of course, is a quote from the Gospel of Luke and we heard it earlier this week on the holy day of obligation, the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. And I love this passage because it challenges our worldview. God has favorites. We might not think so, we might want to think, no, He thinks of everyone on the same level. He does to a certain extent, but God does favor the lowly. God does favor the poor. Those who are even unintelligent, those who are lacking. It's not the rich, it's not the mighty that God favors but those who are wanting. You may know that I've been on a few mission trips in since my time here at All Saints. 
The last two years I've gone with our Parish to Mexico and then this year to Honduras and I've loved those trips, particularly because I was able to encounter something there that I can't encounter here at the parish. Encountering the physically poor, the destitute, those who are wanting and yet to witness and encounter their openness to God. I think it's precisely in this, that they are lacking, they are wanting and so they have this great openness to a God who can save them, who can fill every one of their needs. And when they do this when, when they allow God to fill them you see a great joy, a great happiness in their lives even though they have so little. I encourage you look at the boards in the gathering space after Mass. There's some pictures there from our trip this year, there are also some reflection books reflecting with some of the youth on the trip. And you'll see those faces, the faces of the happy poor, the happy orphans that we go and visit. And when we go on these trips certainly we want to help. We are going to maybe help change those who we would meet in some way, but time and time again when we come back we are the ones who are changed. They helped us see a worldview that we just couldn't see when we were here at home.
And we see this favor of God in the readings today, first in the book of Proverbs, Lady Wisdom says, “Let whoever is simple turn in here. To the one who lacks understanding.” she says, “Come eat of my food and drink the wine that I have mixed, forsake foolishness that you may live. Advance in the way of understanding.” Our Lord calls the simple. Our Lord calls those who actually lack understanding that He might fill them. Again in the song The psalmist writes, when the poor one called out, the Lord heard and from all his distress He saved him. He prefers the poor. And then again in our Gospel today as we continue our reading in the successive weeks from the bread of life discourse in the Gospel of John. The educated and the intellectual elite in this reading rebuffed Jesus's words. They can't understand how He might give His flesh that they eat and his blood for them to drink and so then next week we'll see them turn away, but the poor are able to receive what Jesus says. They're able to grasp his message. The poor fisherman that He called, the farmers, those who maybe lacked some worldly understanding, could grasp his message and receive it into their empty selves.
 I think many of us will be surprised when we get to heaven and it's filled with illiterate, poor and meek individuals. We take for granted that everyone's like us in 21st century America, in a first world country, that everyone's educated, everyone can read and write, everyone has a certain level of understanding and knowledge in a wordly view. But this is not the story of the church. For centuries and millennia the church was filled with poor, illiterate disciples. Those who couldn't read and write, hard blue collar workers, but they filled the church because they themselves needed to be filled. I'm not preaching a gospel that's anti-intellectual certainly or unreasonable, but an over intellectualization can actually close us off to the truth and that's what we see today in the gospel with those struggling with Jesus’ words. I'm reminded of a story that Saint Alphonsus Liguori tells in his famous work Uniformity With God's Will. I usually don't bore you with long quotes but this dialogue today is really helpful in helping understand this principle. Alphonsus tells us about a devout priest, perhaps like me, probably more like Father Wilson. And this priest for years prayed that God would send him someone to teach him the real spiritual life and then one day in prayer this priest heard a voice saying go to such and such a church and your prayer will be answered. So he goes to the church and right there on the doorstep of the church he finds a beggar, someone who's barefoot, in rags and this is their conversation. The priest says, good day my friend, to which the beggar replied, “Thank you sir for your kind wishes but I do not recall ever having a bad day.” The priest says then, “God has certainly given you a very happy life.” and the beggar responded, “That is very true sir, I have never been unhappy and saying this I'm not making any rash statement either. This is the reason. When I have nothing to eat, I give thanks to God. When it rains or snows I bless God's providence. When someone insults me, drives me away or otherwise mistreats me, I give glory to God. I said I've never had an unhappy day and it's the truth because I am accustomed to will unreservedly what God wills. Whatever happens to me bitter or sweet, I gladly received from His hands for that is what is best for me. Hence my unvarying happiness.” The priest ask, “Where did you find God?” I found him where I left creatures. Who are you anyway? I am a king, the beggar responded. And where is your kingdom? In my soul where everything is in good order for the passions obey reason and reason obeys God. How did you come to such a state of perfection? the priest asks. By silence. I practice silence toward men while I cultivate the habit of speaking with God. Conversing with God is the way I found and maintain my piece of soul. Alphonsus explains that this poor beggar found union with God and it lifted him to the heights of perfection, that in his poverty, he was richer than the mightiest king. In his sufferings he was vastly happier than worldlings amid their worldly delights.
Jesus says in the Beatitudes, in that first beatitude, Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Today we come before the Lord, we come into his kingdom, we come to the banquet that He sets for us and this banquet isn't for the rich. This banquet isn't for the intellectual elite, those who have everything figured out. It's for the poor, those who lack understanding, that they may be filled and gain that wisdom that we can learn from our brothers and sisters who are lacking, who are wanting. 
Today we have the great pleasure of having the Little Sisters of the Poor with us and I'm always impressed by their mission to go and take care of the elderly poor, the destitute even to the end of their days and so today I'd like to welcome sister Michael forward and she's going to share with us a little bit about their mission, so please welcome sister Michael.
Thank you Father. Good morning. Sister Mary Alphonsus and I are happy to be here. We know that many of you could probably tell us stories about the little sisters. Our sisters have been in Saint Paul since 1883 on the bluff down the hill from the cathedral and for many years in Minneapolis. The two houses merged when St Paul was rebuilt in the late 70s. 
Our story started far away from St Paul, a little fishing town on the west coast of France John Drugan, she's st. John now, poor, 47 years old, she always knew God wanted her.  She shared an apartment with a friend and they took in an infirm elderly neighbor. One good deed, others followed. Girls from the neighborhood came to help, seeing the need, so many older women especially with no support. They got a bigger place, an empty Café, practically on the beach. It is yet a fishing town. So there were 12 guests and soon there was no money. Jean turns to the neighbors for help. They managed. Soon they wanted her in the next town, they have the same problem, then the next county, then the next country. She never started out to found a religious community but today our sisters are in 31 countries. We have 27 homes in the states and we still turn to the neighbors for help. In John's tradition with the confidence in providence that she left us and trying to make as happy a home as we can for the, right now, right around 100 residents that we have. Folks who either can't keep it together financially or see the day coming very quickly when they won't be able to. 50% of what we do running the home is on donation. We never make ends meet otherwise. The announcement said the second collection after communion is for our work. Sister and I will be back at the doors after Mass. We have envelopes if you're not ready today. We have some information, we would be happy to answer questions. We love to hear old little sister stories, if you have them. We've been hearing them all morning and we do promise you our prayers as always, and we ask for yours. For the work, for all those folks that we have to turn down because we just don't have the space and especially when you hear the stories, what you can't do is the hardest part of the whole mission. And also we know you do, but keep praying for vocations. God's been good to us, we've never been without, but when you see the need and put it up against the reality, we're like everybody else, we need more sisters. Tell young people belonging to Christ makes for a happy life and there are a lot of old people out there looking for a home. Last week we had a profession in New York and with it we have four new novices, white nails, new names, exciting day in New York. But pray for them that they have a way to go yet and a number of young women looking at, praying for it but I don't have to tell you the world is a very noisy and distracting place. They could stand some encouragement so thank you again we'll see you after Mass. God bless.

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