Be Merciful to our Neighbor - VIII Sunday after Pentecost ( 23. July 2023)

Dear brethren, 

“Make friends for yourselves with the mammon of wickedness, so that when you fail they may receive you into the everlasting dwellings”

Jesus wants to teach us the right use of the riches and of everything we have received, everything we possess.

We are all more or less the bad administrator, the bad steward of the goods we have received by God, because we all are sinner. And the sin is a bad us of the creature in a way that offends God, in a way that brings us far from Him or that separates us from Him, if it is a mortal sin.

It is the reason why we all need God’s mercy. And therefore Jesus has taught us to pray: “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive to those who trespassed against us”

As I was a young priest I visited once at the seminary the priest who had been my spiritual director during my seminary years. He was already rather old and sick. When I was going to leave his room, I asked him: “Father, do you need something?”. He answered: No, everything is o.k. But he added soon, as I was about to go outside: Oh yes, I need something. I still need the mercy of God”. It came from the depth of his heart. He was a good, holy priest and that’s why he was aware of the necessity of God’s mercy. 

At the beginning of his predication Jesus has taught us the Christian spirit in the sermon on the Mountain, and especially in the Beatitudes. Among them there the fifth one that says: “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy”. Yes the most secure means of getting God’s mercy – which we all need – is to be merciful. Why? Because God considers the work of mercy that we do for our neighbor as if it would be done to Him.

By our sins we have offended Him, by the works of mercy we repair our sins and we console Him in his suffering members.

Holy persons have understood quite well that and therefore many of them have dedicated their life to works of mercy: bodily mercy and spiritual mercy. Last week we have remembered and honored especially three of them: 

St. Camillus who founded a congregation of clerics in order to help the dying people. In the prayer we say: O God, Who endowed St Camillus with a special gift of charity for the help of souls struggling in their final agony, pour upon us by his merits the spirit of Your love…”. . 

St. Vincent de Paul dedicated his life to the poor: O God, who endowed St. Vincent with apostolic strength to preach the Gospel to the poor…, grant that we may conform to the example of his virtues” 

And the third one is St. Jerome Emiliani who founded a congregation of clerics to help the orphans. The collect says: “O God, the Father of mercies, by the merits and intercession of St. Jerome, whom You willed to be the helper and father of orphans, grand that we may faithfully guard the spirit of adoption which makes us Your sons both in name and reality”.

One of our big struggles today is the defense of the catholic faith, as every of you is well convinced. But let us not forget that we have to show our Faith through our deeds and that we have the duty to manifest our faith in works of mercy as far as we can. May Our Lady remind us these words of Jesus: “That which you have made to one of this little who believe in me, you have done it to me”

Fr. Laroche