Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year A
1st Reading: Zec 9:9-10
2nd reading: Rom 8:9, 11-13
Gospel: Mt 11:25-30
A Missionary of Charity.
I recall in the 1970s the national television station in Ireland, R.T.E., ran an advertisement which I found very striking. It was very unusual and I don’t think anything like this ever appeared before or perhaps since. Ads, were very frequent and they interrupted every program. In the midst of a series about washing powders, teas, coffees, cigars etc., a scene showing an elderly woman in her living room, alone, looking rather despondent, would appear. The phone rings and she is elated. She answers, but the caller had accidentally phoned a wrong number. She still wanted to talk, it didn’t matter, but he simply apologised and hung up. The tears of disappointment began to roll down her cheeks. It was a very clear message about reaching out to the lonely, especially the elderly living on their own.
On Tuesday we celebrate the solemnity of our patron, St Benedict. Also on Tuesday and Wednesday this coming week we will have special opportunities to recall the life of St Teresa of Calcutta and venerate her
relics. Mother Teresa spent the large part of her long life reaching out to the poorest of the poor, founding the Missionaries of Charity, sisters, nuns, fathers and brothers, right throughout the world for this ministry. But when she was asked what the greatest suffering in the world was, she did not say it was poverty. Rather, she said it was loneliness. You do not have to go to Calcutta to serve the poor – Calcutta is everywhere, she would say, in every neighbourhood in the world. And who sees this? The little ones.
Today, Jesus gives thanks to His Father – St Luke has ‘rejoices in the Holy Spirit’ – because He has revealed His mysteries, not to the ‘wise and understanding’, but to babes, little ones. Such was the gracious Will
of the Father. He wants us to come to Him and learn from Him. Learn what? That He is gentle and lowly in heart. “Lo, your king comes to you, triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on an ass.” And being united to Jesus, in communion with Jesus and the Father gives rest, the rest of being in their presence. The ‘burden’ of the Law the Pharisees wanted to impose is replaced by the yoke of the new Law of Charity, seeing here the fulfilment of the Law that Jesus brings about. But note He did not say He would thus take all our pain and suffering away – that is not the ‘rest’ He means. We only will enjoy such eternal rest in Heaven when Jesus will wipe away every tear. One aspect of the spiritual life every saint teaches is the salvific meaning of suffering in union with the sufferings of Christ. St Paul knew this well when he spoke about living in the Spirit rather than the flesh. St Faustina in her diary wrote the following: “From the moment I came to love suffering, it ceased to be a suffering for me. Suffering is the daily food my soul”. This is the ‘rest’ Jesus means. This is the wisdom of the love of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
You may have noticed the sign on the entrance door to our monastery shop and visitors centre displaying the word ‘PAX’ – Peace – and that it is surrounded by a crown of thorns. Thus too the image of the Sacred
Heart of Jesus is surrounded with a crown of thorns as is the image of the Immaculate Heart of Mary and pierced through with a sword. The piercing sword signifies suffering, but suffering with outpouring love.
We are called to reach out to those who suffer, and bring Jesus to them. This is the essence of the work of the Missionaries of Charity and it was for this that Jesus thirsts for, from the cross, to the present day.
Mother Teresa would say that her favourite mystery of the rosary was – not so much the 5 th sorrowful mystery of the crucifixion, but the second joyful mystery where Mary goes to visit her cousin Elizabeth. In that mystery Mary is the first to bring Jesus – in her womb – to another, to Elizabeth. And such was the joy in the Holy Spirit they shared that even the baby in Elizabeth’s womb too leapt for joy! Mother Teresa would therefore say that Mary was the first Missionary of Charity, the first to bring Jesus to another. And her mission to the hill country was immediate, following the news she received from the Angel Gabriel that her elderly cousin, Elizabeth, was in her sixth month of pregnancy. And there follows Mary’s hymn of rejoicing, echoing what Jesus says today.
For God has looked upon His lowly handmaid, revealed His mystery to a little one, and not to the proud of heart. Why? Because the Heart of Our Saviour is meek and humble and unites to Himself in the most profound way those who wish to come to Him and learn from Him. A soft and kindly word can be the way to bring Jesus to another. The gift of your smile to a lonely one can turn their loneliness into rejoicing, even to a prefect stranger. Had the stranger who phoned the wrong number been sensitive to the need of the one he called, he could have turned her loneliness away from tears to gladness.