Omissions, 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time (C), September 26, 2010

Fr. Roger J. Landry
St. Anthony of Padua Church, New Bedford, MA
Twenty-Sixth Sunday in OT, Year C
September 26, 2010
Amos 6:1, 4-7; 1 Tim 6:11-16; Lk 16:19-31

The following text guided today’s homily:

• Unforgettable Gospel.
  • Who among us is not moved when we hear the story of Lazarus, covered with sores, being licked and molested by dogs, longing to eat just the crumbs from the master’s table?
  • Who among us is not moved by the desperation of the Rich man after he dies, dying of torment, thirst, worried about his brothers?
  • What moves us all the more is not simply the state each is in, but the fact that each was avoidable.
• Rich man went to hell
  • Not because he had earned his money in an immoral way
  • Not because he had been asked by Lazarus for help and refused
  • Not because he had sent dogs to lick Lazarus’ wounds or had done anything evil to him.
  • But because he simply ignored Lazarus at his gate.
  • He was condemned not because of anything he had done, but precisely because of what he hadn’t done: he was so caught up in himself that he didn’t make any effort at all to help out a man who was struggling and dying in his midst.
• Jesus said that when he judges us, he’ll say to those on his left, “Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels, because I was hungry and you gave me no food, thirsty and you gave me no drink, naked and you gave me no clothes, a stranger and you gave me no welcome, ill and in prison and you didn’t care for me.” The condemned will ask, “Lord when did we see YOU hungry, thirsty, naked, ill, a stranger or a prisoner and not minister to your needs?” Jesus said he’ll reply, “As often as you failed to do this to the least of my brothers and sisters, you failed to do it to me.”
• So many Catholics are accustomed to thinking about how God wants them to change simply in terms of bad behavior they know he wants them to cut out. We think about sin just in terms of commissions, the evil thoughts we have, the evil malicious or mendacious words we say, the evil deeds we commit. But, as we note in the Confiteor at the beginning of Mass, these are not all the sins we commit. We confess to Almighty God and to each other that we have sinned “in my thoughts, in my words, in what I have done” and “what I have failed to do.” But so often we examine ourselves on our thoughts, words and deeds, but not on our omissions. We omit the omissions. We can become like the husband who says that he doesn’t cheat on his wife, who doesn’t beat her, who doesn’t do any type of evil to her, but who never tells her he loves her, who doesn’t make the time for her, who omits what to her is most important. It’s not enough for us not to do evil, but we also have to do good, to seek to sacrifice ourselves for those who are needy, to look ourselves, identify the needs, and do what we can to remedy them.
• This is our second parish-wide Mass. When we got together in March, we focused on trying to help our parish grow as a true family, beginning with our praying together as brothers and sisters of the same heavenly Father. Today I’d like to develop that image of a family more deeply, by focusing on how each of us in this parish family is co-responsible for the good of the family, for helping the family grow.
• A few weeks ago I took a wonderful four-day trip to Alaska. I had always wanted to go to Alaska during the summer, to see the sun out at 11 at night, to see the mountains and the glaciers. I saw all of that in a great and dangerous mountain hike with two friends from college who live there with their families, as well as in one of their tiny little planes flying around the 7,000 foot mountains and down onto the glaciers, battling 100 mph winds and more. As breathtakingly beautiful as the scenery was, the most amazing thing was really being with my friends Sean and Laura and their family for a few days. Two weeks before my arrival, Laura had just given birth to her tenth child. The day after my arrival was the first day of school. They asked me to celebrate Mass at 6:30 in the morning so that the kids could attend before eating breakfast and heading off to school. I thought the whole thing would be chaos, with three young children in the home, several other kids preparing for the first day of school. But it wasn’t. I got there a few minutes early to set up. And I noticed that the older kids had gotten up early and showered so that they could then awaken their younger siblings and help them get ready for both Mass and school. Once the middle kids were ready, they started to take care of the three youngest kids who couldn’t take care of themselves. Everyone was ready for Mass to begin at 6:25. After Mass, we prayed a quick prayer of thanksgiving. The older kids immediately got breakfast ready for their younger siblings and then got their own breakfast. The oldest child, Maria, who just turned 16 and had gotten her driver’s license, announced that because five year old Catherine was beginning school that day and was nervous about it, they would need to leave at 7:20 so that they could all accompany her in and help her meet her teacher, her friends, etc., before heading to their own schools. At 7:15, the older kids finished and helped their younger ones get their lunches, reminded them to brush their teeth, put their shoes and jackets on, and get everyone to the SUV that 16 year old Maria would drive to bring the six older kids to school. The ignition sounded two minutes early at 7:18 and off they were. I looked at my friends Sean and Laura, who were taking care of their two youngest kids, and said, “That’s one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen in my entire life, how all your kids care for and help each other.” I was preparing to ask them how they trained their kids to behave so unselfishly, but before I did, Laura basically said that it was something that the kids seemed to pick up naturally. That the older kids always seemed to help their younger siblings and then the younger siblings naturally began to help out such that the system of charity almost put itself together. They refused to take much credit for it and said that they, too, were amazed.
• I’ve been in enough homes to know that that’s not a common occurrence. It’s much more common for parents to have to remind their kids many times to do their chores, to have to intervene to break up disputes or fights among the kids, to have to tell them to share, or to forgive, and they long for spontaneous acts of charity. As the kids get older, often there’s a situation when the kids, who are now more capable of contributing to the good of the home, start to do even less, as they get focused on their own pursuits, whether it’s sports or other activities outside the home, or X-box, computers, ipods and other things within the home. Many times parents get frustrated that, after working long hours at job sites, they become taxi driver, chef, waiter and waitress, mediator, motivational coach, tutor, dishwasher, housecleaner, and more — and very often without their kids doing willingly what they would expect would be their fair share. No parent really expects the kids to do all they do for the good of the home. They do expect, however, that they will do their part. When the members of a family aren’t all doing their part for the good of the family, the family struggles. The struggles come not because members are sabotaging each other with evil thoughts, words or actions, but often because they’re doing nothing.
• This contrast between two types of families, a family that really works for the good of everyone, with those willingly doing what they can to help out, and one in which activity needs to be begged, or bribed, or threatened, is something we all have to confront at the level of a parish family. There are two types of parish we can be: one like my friends’ family in Alaska; another like so many stress-filled families that fail to live up to their potential and fail, often, to be the source of real happiness, love and support that we all hope for and want.
• For this parish to become fully alive, it requires that we all pitch in and do our own part. There’s no expectation that everyone will do the same, for example, that kids under 10 will be doing the heavy lifting in our parish. But there is an expectation that kids under 10 will be doing what they can — perhaps through singing in the youth choir, serving at Mass, helping to pass out bulletins, contributing some of their allowance or their gift money to the good of the Church or to the poor of the food pantry. For teens, we expect that as they mature, they’ll also mature in their responsibility here at the parish, to practice the faith, to bring it to others, to help out in ways they can. Many of the teens of our parish are helping out as CCD aides or even teachers. Others train new corps of altar servers. Others are doing a lot of peer-on-peer ministry through our youth group. For young adults and older adults, the expectation is that they’ll take real responsibility for the success of the parish, through using their professional training in ways that can strengthen the whole parish family, by using their time and their other talents to help out, in one way or another.
• Pope Benedict in 2009 to the whole Church in the Diocese of Rome stressed the “pastoral co-responsibility” of the laity in Christ’s name. He said it’s necessary to improve pastoral structures in such a way that the co-responsibility of all the members of the People of God in their entirety is gradually promoted. He said, “This demands a change in mindset, particularly concerning lay people. They must no longer be viewed as ‘collaborators’ of the clergy but truly recognized as ‘co-responsible,’ for the Church’s being and action, thereby fostering the consolidation of a mature and committed laity.” Pope Benedict is saying that, just as in a family, we hope that everyone will be mature and committed, will not just seek to be a recipient but a co-responsible for the overall good of the family, so in the Church and in the parish we need to ask, “Am I a mature committed member of the parish? Do I have a sense of what my responsibilities are to help the parish not just survive but thrive and grow? Do I see my responsibility stop at putting something in the basket each week, or do I recognize that the time I have, the gifts I’ve been given, have been given to me by God to help strengthen this parish family?” Our sense of responsibility might be seen more clearly by the flip-side. “If this parish were to fail for lack of vitality, or money, or people, would I take that failure personally, as if I had failed? Or would I be looking at someone else to blame? Or would I be making excuses about demographic trends, rather than looking at my own actions to see what I might have done to have prevented it?” The more responsible we are, the more personally we take success and defeat. The more committed we are, the more we are invested.
• When we look at Jesus’ story, we see something about the Rich Man who went to hell. Even when he was in hell, he thought he should be served by others. He asked Abraham to have Lazarus dip his finger in water to cool his tongue and then to have him go to his family to warn them not to make the same mistakes he had. Similarly, people in parishes — young and adult — can think that others are there to serve them, rather than that they’re also called to serve others.
• So today is an opportunity for all of us to look around, to see others, to see the needs of the parish, and to begin to ask, not what others can do, but what can I do, to take responsibility for the overall growth of the parish and to collaborate for the good of all. I’m not asking everyone to take on my responsibilities, but to take on your own.
• Downstairs there will be an opportunity to get a sheet with the many activities going on here, to see where you would fit in to help. There will also be an opportunity to start other things, to use initiative, to become more committed, spiritually mature, co-responsible.
• Out of the many things I could specify as applications of this, I’d like briefly to do three.
  • Food pantry — even greater need now. This is one literal way we can act on today’s message from Jesus in the Gospel. Need for more food. May need more volunteers if we expand the hours of the food pantry.
  • Food Cards — Enormous untapped resource. Collections have been going down. This is one way that all people can increase their weekly support of the parish. If every family in the parish did this, it would almost double our collection each week. But right now, probably only 20 households in the parish are regularly helping out the parish in this way. If you haven’t been participating, I ask you please to try to begin doing so.
  • The concert series with the Symphony Orchestra. What’s behind it — cultural opportunity, preserving the treasure of these great works of art, but also strengthening our parish. It also brings people back to Church. We also need big gifts and for that we need big donors and this brings them. Need to sell tickets to the activity. What can you do? Some of you could easily sell 25 or more. Some might be able only to move a few. But could you start asking? I hated yard sales when I was a kid, but we all helped, because we knew that our mother was doing it for the good of the family, because we needed the money. We’re doing this to bring people back to Church and because we need the money. Will you pitch in?
• At the end of the Gospel today, there’s the scene where the Rich man asks someone to go to his brothers to wake them up so that they don’t share his fate. Abraham replied they have Moses and the Prophets, all of whom talked about love of neighbor. We don’t just have Moses and the Prophets, we have a man raised from the dead. We receive his risen body and blood. And are told by him to do this in his memory, to offer ourselves for others, not just not to do bad stuff, but to do good stuff following his example. When we receive him, we are supposed to become one body, one spirit in Him. That’s what he wants to help bring about, a truly family, a true body in which all of the parts work in a healthy way to build up the body. Let’s ask the Holy Spirit’s help to do just that!

The readings for today’s Mass were: