March 29, 2003
Dear Sisters, Volunteers, and all Friends in Christ,
I am always happy to come here and celebrate with you, and thank God for the blessing He has given His people through your work. But today, our thanks is magnified, as we offer this Mass especially for the volunteers who work in this ministry - in gratitude for their efforts, and for the special intentions they bring to today's Mass.
When we think about the story told in today's Gospel, the story of the Pharisee and the tax collector, we see that the difference between those who work for others and those who work for themselves - the Pharisee might have used his power, his influence and wealth, to spread blessings upon the poor of Jerusalem, but instead, he keeps to the letter of the law, he gives what he is required to give, and offer this as a justification before God, that he has done no more. His entire frame of reference is caught up in how he himself measures his own attainment of salvation - of how he makes himself right before men, and presumes that this will make him right before his God. But the tax collector is of another kind altogether. And we must conclude, from the deep humility he exhibits, that he is not a rapacious gatherer of the people's money, as so many employees of the Romans were in those days. He cannot have learned his humility from being greedy - he can only have learned it from being generous. For greed teaches us only to be more greedy, and it blinds us to the faults we have, and it leads us to say, as did the Pharisee, "Thank you God that I am not like other men." But generosity teaches us to be small, and to look for greatness, not in keeping, but in giving - and to understand ourselves not in how much we have gained, but in how much we have given away - and to justify ourselves not by saying, "I have done this or that, and therefore, O God, I am worthy of entering your house," - but by saying instead, "O God, I am nothing before your presence, and if I am to be saved, it is because of your kind and merciful love."
I believe that by bringing together two forces of selflessness in this house of religious practice, God has given us all an opportunity, not just to contemplate, but to realize the virtue of humility. By associating volunteers from the people of this Archdiocese with the sisters of Charity, who have consecrated their lives to community and to service, we place in one vessel, two rich wines of our Lord's love - the charity of discipline and the charity of selflessness, and we bring it in equal portions - the sisters put behind them their personal lives and follow their rule to serve - the volunteers put behind them, the distractions of ordinary life, and follow the dictum of our Lord, "Whatsoever you do for the least of my brethren, that you do for me." And the blend of charities that fills the vessel of this house, is poured daily into the souls of those He has commanded us to serve, the poor.
This is a portrait of how you have succeeded in being like the tax collector of the Gospel - of how you have succeeded in bringing true justification, true humility before God, who alone judges your work.
For the future, for the obtaining of that spiritual strength, of grace, which you need to continue, then the words of prophecy will suffice, the words we have heard from the Book of Hosea
Let us know, let us press on to know the LORD; his going forth is sure as the dawn; he will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth.
What a prayer this is - a prayer that pushes us from our seats, that lifts us out of complacency, and reminds us, that we meet the Lord, not in waiting upon Him to do something, but in setting forth to meet Him. So let us all, professed and volunteer, press on to meet the Lord - press on by going forth with happiness - the happiness of labors shared - press on to meet Him, as He approaches us, bringing with Him the showers of grace and mercy which we know will refresh us, and prepare us for tomorrow's work. But let us also remember, that the words we must lift to Him from our hearts, to that Lord who has given His life for our sins, must always be, the words of the humble tax collector, "O God, be merciful to me, a sinner." Then He will know us, and we will know ourselves, and nothing will stand between us, and the love which He will pour into our open hearts.
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