23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time
St. Vincent DePaul National Assembly
September 3, 2022
Mariott Waterfront Hotel, Baltimore
Bottomless Well
Let me say once again how happy I am that you chose the City of Baltimore and the Archdiocese of Baltimore as the site for your National Assembly. I pray that your days here in the Nation’s “Premier See” are filled with God’s choicest blessings and that you return home refreshed and inspired. I also take this occasion to offer you my heartfelt thanks for the wonderful work and witness of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, a work you engage in as disciples of the Lord and servant of the poor, a work that great strengthens the Church’s mission of evanglization.
You chose as your assembly theme, “Come to the Water”, and no doubt you have reflected well and wisely on that theme. I will only repeat what St. Vincent de Paul and Bl. Frederic Ozanam taught us, viz., that the charity and service we strive to offer to the poor and disadvantaged flows from the bottomless well of Christ’s redeeming love. By immersion in the Word of God and in the waters of Baptism, our souls are filled with that water which cleanses, refreshes, and imparts new life. For, as Jesus said to the Samaritan woman at the well, “…whoever drinks the water I will give, will never thirst; the water I shall give will become a spring … welling up to eternal life” (John 4:14). It is from this spring that you and I must drink, and from this spring that the Society of St. Vincent de Paul receives the strength and graces it needs to continue its mission of providing for those in need, person-to-person.
The Scripture readings which the Church sets before us on this Sunday offer challenging insight into the Society’s beautiful mission by reminding us that we engage in these works of charity as the Lord’s disciples, and by reminding us also of the high cost of discipleship. Allow me to reflect on these readings, beginning with the Book of Wisdom.
Wisdom 9:13; Psalm 90; Philemon: Emancipation from Self
This reading instructs us to look for a higher wisdom amid the many concerns and burdens that crowd in on our lives. As we know only too well, there is much that “burdens the soul” and “weighs down the mind.” It is easy for us to ruminate about our problems and concerns even to the point of becoming totally wrapped up, even enslaved, in providing for our needs or hedging against threats, or trying to ameliorate our challenges. With apologies to the financial advisors, Raymond James, “a life well planned” doesn’t always turn out that way. We need, rather, to ask the Holy Spirit to grant us “wisdom from on high”.
The Responsorial Psalm, taken from Psalm 90, builds on that insight. It reflects on the shortness of our lives; we are here today and gone tomorrow, and prays for the wisdom “to number our days aright” – to spend our limited time on this earth not wrapped up in what is worthless but rather in the ambit of God’s gracious and generous care for us, a gracious care that we are called to extend to those around us. Pulling in the same direction, St. Paul describes the interior emancipation of the slave Onésimus. While imprisoned with Paul, Onésimus opened his heart to Christ and the Gospel. Even if society still regarded him as a slave, Onésimus experienced a newfound freedom of spirit, as he became St. Paul’s co-worker and brother in the Lord. In the same way, we find our freedom, our emancipation, our exodus from self by serving those in need, and by doing so as disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, from whose heart flows the endless waters of God’s providential love.
Luke 14:25-33: The High Cost of Discipleship
Ah, but the wisdom and grace of discipleship is not a cheap grace, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer taught us so profoundly. What he meant by “cheap grace” is seeking grace without conversion and claiming discipleship without sacrifice. As disciples who seek to be instruments of God’s mercy and love in a troubled world, let us listen again as Jesus himself instructs us on the high cost of discipleship.
First, to get our attention, he uses exaggerated language, hyperbole, to tell us that, if we would be his disciples, we must prefer him to everyone and everything else. We must love the Lord even more than we love our families and our very selves. Jesus doesn’t really ask us to hate parents, spouses, or children – or ourselves. But he say to those who would be his followers that we must love him with every fiber of our being – body, mind, and spirit – a love that is willing to carry our cross just as Jesus carried his. Loving the Lord in this way does not prevent us from loving others but rather connects us to the Source of that love we want to share with others. And being connected to the Source, the deep well of the Savior’s heart, we are better able to recognize his image in those we serve. It is by carrying our own cross that we are able to shoulder the crosses of others. It turns out that the Cross of Christ is that “superior wisdom” to which our first reading calls us.
In calling us to discipleship, the Lord doubles down on what it will cost us. If we would personally share in the poverty of the poor, then we must be detached from property and possessions. We must be willing to put them at the disposal of the Lord by putting them at the disposal of those who are in need. When Jesus speaks of the wherewithal needed to construct a tower, he is telling us that the Kingdom of God is constructed not out of stones but out of love and generosity. Disciples enmeshed in their own concerns and wrapped up in their possessions lack what is needed to help construct that tower which, in reality, is to be a temple to God’s praise and glory. When Jesus speaks of a king preparing to go into battle, he is speaking directly to your mission, to your struggle against poverty and deprivation. In that struggle, your most important asset is Jesus’ love for you and your love for him, for his love alone conquers the mystery of iniquity we see all around us. His love alone makes of us “an island of mercy in a sea of indifference”. His love alone enables us to offer “comfort and transformative friendship” to those who are in need, and to do so with gentleness and humility.
Person-to-Person
Some years ago, Pope Francis challenged Catholic charitable ministries not to function as if they were mere NGO’s with a religious patina. The Society of St. Vincent de Paul has always guarded against that danger by offering person-to-person love and service to those who are in need, rooted as you are in our faith communities and in diocesan life. Your bring a high degree of expertise and knowledge to your work, but you bring something even more valuable: discipleship. You are disciples of the Lord sharing the Lord’s love with others. This makes all the difference in the world.
My prayer is that you and your co-workers will ‘come to the water’ early and often. Strengthened by the prayers and example of St. Vincent de Paul and Bl. Frederic Ozanam, may you always draw from the deep well of Christ’s heart the charity you seek to share, person-to-person, with those who in need and may, through the intercession of St. Vincent de Paul, Bl. Frederic Ozanam, and all the Vincentian saints, may God bless you and keep you always in his love.