This past week, we have seen some surreal images on the news--flooded homes, people standing on rooftops waiting to be rescued by boat, and shelters full of people. It was a deja vu for those of us in South Louisiana. The videos and photos of people suffering from the tragedy of flooding from the hurricane moved all of us to do something for our neighbor and not just sit. In fact, all of you have given so generously toward our Walmart Card Drive for the people of Laplace, Louisiana, that we collected more than $3,500 worth of gift cards. Our confirmation class will be traveling on a bus today after mass to Laplace to go door-to-door to distribute the cards. It will be an eye-opening experience for our students, seeing for themselves the face of suffering. In my ministry as a priest, I have noticed that suffering has a way of opening a heart that has been deaf to God’s invitation to be kind and compassionate to our neighbor.
A religious priest belonging to the Dominican order tells a compelling story of his personal encounter with Mother Teresa that occurred while he was in Calcutta, India giving a mission to the sisters at the Mother House of the Missionaries of Charity. After a long day of giving the retreat, he went back to his room tired and ready to sleep. He noticed a terrible smell wafting in through the window above him and he wondered aloud, “What is that smell!” He was worried that his white habit would smell like that stench so he got up to the window to close it. As he peered out the window, lying on the ground below was an emaciated man with a gaping hole in his side, filled with maggots. The priest couldn’t stand the stench so he closed the window and sat back down on his bed. Then he began to be convicted and torn inside, ‘But I’m a priest. Why am I ignoring this man?” He began to feel terrible inside. Then he began to hear a conversation outside the window. A young woman’s voice said, “I will take care of him.” Then an older woman’s voice said, “No, I will take care of him.” Curious, the priest got up to the window, opened it up a bit to see what was taking place. He saw little diminutive Mother Teresa on her knees picking up the man into her arms, and he heard her say, “My Jesus, my Jesus, welcome to my home.” The priest sat back down in his bed and began to cry, out of shame. He then cried out, “God, make me like that! I want to be like that!” A couple of minutes later he heard a knock on the door. When he opened it, there stood Mother Teresa with the dying man in her arms. She said, “Father, he is about to die. Could you bless him?” He said, “Yes,” and took the man and rolled him into his white habit. He blessed him, and he died shortly after that. After this encounter with Mother Teresa, the priest said, “That woman changed my life, because she loved her neighbor.”
We disciples want to be as kind and compassionate to others. But what keeps us from hearing the cry of our neighbor and being kind and compassionate? It may be due to our own individualistic desire to accumulate possessions and to gain prestige by coming out on top. This individualistic attitude has taken over the sense of fellowship, compassion, and community. Now, people live more or less on their own in their comfortable house, jealously guarding their goods and planning to acquire more, with a notice on the gate that warns, 'Beware of the Dog.’ What will break this attitude? We need to imitate what Jesus and the folks in the district of Decapolis did for the man who was deaf.
Those in the community of Decapolis felt compassion for the man who was deaf and brought him to Jesus hoping that he would be cured. Jesus personally took great care of the deaf man by physically touching the man’s ears and tongue and then groaning toward His Father in Heaven the desire to alleviate this man’s suffering. Jesus restored this man to the fullness of life and communion with his community and with Heavenly Father. Not only could the man hear the people’s voices, but he could also hear God’s voice in his heart, sing his praises, and proclaim his mighty deeds.
That is the way we should want to live our lives. We should not want a life of solitary pursuit of personal preferences and comfort. Jesus did not live a life of solitary pursuits. Instead, out of great love for the Father and each one of us, He gave His life so that we might live in eternity with the Father. Mother Teresa understood the depth of Jesus’ love for us and emulated His love. What we should want is the same desire that drove Mother Teresa to put her love in action for others. What our community is doing for the Laplace community is a sign that love is possible in a materialistic world where people so often either ignore one another or fight each other. A Christian community should do as Jesus did: propose and not impose. Its attraction must lie in the radiance cast by the love of brothers and sisters. The confirmation students are very familiar with gift cards because they receive them on their birthdays or Christmas. But this afternoon they’ll experience something different as they knock on the doors of the flood-damaged homes. They’ll see young people in those homes who are in the same grade as they are, who have lost their favorite clothing and belongings. Our students are not there simply to distribute handouts. They are there to encounter personally the suffering of Jesus in their neighbor and be witnesses of the outpouring of one community for another. I hope what our students are doing for the community of Laplace also moves us and many others to say, “I want to be like that!”
