Philippians 3:3-8 / Luke 15:1-10
I seek only Christ: All else counts as nothing.
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How dedicated to Christ and his work are we? "Alas for
those who never sing, but die with their music within them." Oliver
Wendell Holmes
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Saint MartÃn de Porres, 1579-1639
Feast day November 3
“Compassion, my dear Brother, is preferable to cleanliness.
Reflect that with a little soap I can easily clean my bed covers, but even with
a torrent of tears I would never wash from my soul the stain that my harshness
toward the unfortunate would create.”
Martin de Porres was born in Lima, Peru, to parents of mixed
race. Raised primarily by his mother, a freed slave, Martin experienced the
effects of racism and poverty early in his life. He became the apprentice of a
barber, learning not only how to cut hair, but to perform basic medical
treatments. Feeling called to give his life to God in service of the lowly,
Martin entered the Dominicans, who accepted him as a lay helper and later as a
brother. He spent his days caring for the those who were sick and poor, as well
as performing menial tasks within the monastery. His nights were spent in
prayer, penance, and adoration. Martin treated everyone with respect and
dignity, regardless of their race or social status. He was instrumental in
founding an orphanage to care for Lima’s many street children.
At his canonization ceremony in 1962, Pope John XXIII said
of Saint Martin: “He tried with all his might to redeem the guilty; lovingly he
comforted the sick; he provided food, clothing and medicine for the poor; he
helped, as best he could, farm laborers and Negroes, as well as mulattoes, who
were looked upon at that time as akin to slaves: thus he deserved to be called
by the name the people gave him: ‘Martin of Charity.’”
Saint Martin experienced the exclusion, derision, and
discrimination of racism. Instead of growing bitter, he used his experience to
reach out and comfort others. Martin’s unwavering love of God and devotion to
the Passion sustained him in his charitable works that often went
unacknowledged.
Who are the people that you exclude from your life or keep at a distance? Reflect on the subtle, or not so subtle, ways you discriminate against people who are different from you. Listen for how God might be calling you to a greater inclusion of others.
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As a Jew, Paul could be proud of many things: born as a
member of the chosen people and circumcised; as a Pharisee, secure in the
strict observance of the Law... Yet all these had proven to be not advantages
but obstacles to encountering Christ: instead, they had made him a persecutor
of Christ; the Law had made him a prisoner of the Law rather than a servant of
God. And now he is happy that, by the grace of God, he has discovered the
foolishness of the cross. God has found him; Christ has become his riches, and
all the rest doesn’t matter.
Quite often we misplace things. Not just anything but things
that we need to use, things that have some kind of sentimental value to us,
things that might not belong to us even. As much as we are careful to keep
those things, there are times when out of careless or forgetfulness or
distraction that we misplace those things. And when we realize that they are
missing, we embark on a frantic search for those things. A good example would
be the keys or the wallet.
When those kinds of things are lost, we will feel the anxiety that our security
is at risk. In the gospel, Jesus told a parable of a search - a search for a
lost sheep and a search for a lost coin. We may think that the parable may not
make much sense as we would measure the worth of one sheep over ninety-nine
sheep and one coin over nine coins.
But Jesus wants to point out to us that that is how God feels when one of His
children is lost. God feels that urgency of an immediate all-out search. But
the search can only take place when we are willing to be sent out for the
search. But if we don't feel that anxiety or urgency, then nothing will be
found.
Yet we must also remember that when we get lost in the jungle of life, we would
also wish that someone would care enough to come and look for us and give us
back some hope. Let us feel the anxiety and urgency of those who are lost in
life. In looking for them and helping them, we will also find our way to God.
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Let us Pray: Lord our God, we know that Jesus came for everybody, yet he wanted to find back the very one given up by people: the tax collector, the sinner, the prodigal. Do not allow us in our zeal for what is right and good to lose sight of this one person who was written off by people, yet who merited the special concern of your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
