Lent - Day Six - Sheep and Goats

Gospel
Matthew 25:31-46 ©

I was naked and you clothed me; sick, and you visited me

Jesus said to his disciples: ‘When the Son of Man comes in his glory, escorted by all the angels, then he will take his seat on his throne of glory. All the nations will be assembled before him and he will separate men one from another as the shepherd separates sheep from goats. He will place the sheep on his right hand and the goats on his left.

  ‘Then the King will say to those on his right hand, “Come, you whom my Father has blessed, take for your heritage the kingdom prepared for you since the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food; I was thirsty and you gave me drink; I was a stranger and you made me welcome; naked and you clothed me, sick and you visited me, in prison and you came to see me.” Then the virtuous will say to him in reply, “Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you; or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and make you welcome; naked and clothe you; sick or in prison and go to see you?” And the King will answer, “I tell you solemnly, in so far as you did this to one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did it to me.”

  ‘Next, he will say to those on his left hand, “Go away from me, with your curse upon you, to the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you never gave me food; I was thirsty and you never gave me anything to drink; I was a stranger and you never made me welcome, naked and you never clothed me, sick and in prison and you never visited me.” Then it will be their turn to ask, “Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty, a stranger or naked, sick or in prison, and did not come to your help?” Then he will answer, “I tell you solemnly, in so far as you neglected to do this to one of the least of these, you neglected to do it to me.”

  ‘And they will go away to eternal punishment, and the virtuous to eternal life.

I awoke on Sunday after a night where my bed had a tendency to spin merrily as I lay upon it as the vino projected its effects and wound me up for the morning's hangover.  The coffee pot was my savior that morning.  Everyone was around the fire which was burning low and the Master was enjoying a breakfast of figs and grapes. I sat down after claiming coffee and a hunk of bread, this was the most that my body would be able to accept.  A wise man once said, "The man drinks the first wineskin and the second, but the third, the wineskin drinks the man."   I felt that I was living proof of that wisdom. 

A man wandered into our camp.  He was dirty and disheveled and it was apparent that bathing was not his habit.  His eyes held the look of madness and I could not imagine how he had come here in this oasis in the middle of the desert.   I felt a tug at my heartstring for the man who was looking longingly at the great amount of food that was on display. My companions took no notice of the man, it is as if he were invisible to them.  They kept their eyes on the Master and tended to His every want.  I noticed that the man hand no sandals and his tunic was worn to a frazzle.  No one in the camp paid him any attention.   I got up and went to my collection of belongings.  I took out a pair of new sandals, a tunic, one of my best, and I approached the stranger and presented them to him and asked him to please accept them as a gift  He looked at me and tears formed in his eyes.  He said that this was the first kindness he had experienced in a long, long time.  I took his hand and set him in my place and gave him some of the dates and figs, and bread along with a large cup of water which had just been drawn from the well and was ice cold and he ate and drank and I was pleased to see him become more human as the food gave him energy and new clothing gave him dignity.  I bent down to ask if I could get him more food or drink and when he turned and looked at me,  I saw that it was the Master's face. 

Tuesday of Holy Week - Betrayal

Reclining at table with his disciples, Jesus was deeply troubled and testified,

"Amen, amen, I say to you, one of you will betray me."

I don't think that there is anything more painful to the human heart than an act of betrayal.  What makes betrayal so painful is that it is an act of a friend.  A person who does not know you cannot betray you. We all have been the victim of betrayal in our lives.  When I was a seventh grader, my friend Dennis and I went over to McKinley Park, a beautiful place when I was a kid, it was filled with bicycle paths, playgrounds, and a lagoon that you could actually catch fish at. This, of course, was in warm weather.  My friend and I were going to the park on a day when only fools and idiots were out of doors as it was very cold. We had a purpose in mind.  The cold snap would have frozen the lagoon solid and we wanted to take some time to explore the three islands that were on this man-made lake.  And so we did.  It turned out that these three little islands were nothing very special, a fact which we took note of and started to use the ice for its native purpose, sliding.  All in all, it was a lot of fun for a couple young boys on a cold and blustery Chicago winter weekend.  At one end of the park was the "inlet" that kept the water fresh.  The inlet was not a spring, it was a pipe that poured fresh Lake Michigan water into the lagoon to prevent it from becoming a stinking swamp in the summer months.  We gravitated towards this pipe because even though it was freezing cold, there were six feet of liquid water surrounding the pipe.  We got to the edge of the ice and my friend pointed at something and I bent low to see what it was.  The next thing I knew I was under the water. The icy water made me gasp and I was out air quickly.  God was with me at that moment because I did not panic and thrash about so I stayed near the hole.  I remember seeing the ice from the bottom with the weak sunlight lighting it up.  I struggled and pushed myself up and my friend's arm pulled me out and deposited me on the ice like a walrus.  I began immediately to shiver. My friend found it all hilarious and called me a clumsy oaf.  My lips were blue and I knew I could not walk the two miles back to my home but luckily my Uncle John lived not too far from the park.  My friend said he had to go home and turned and left me shivering and freezing to death on the ice.  I trudged off the ice and walked to my uncle's house which, luckily, was only two blocks away. My uncle provided me with warm clothes and hot chocolate and called his brother to come and pick me up.  Later, I learned that my friend, Dennis, was bragging and laughing about how foolish I looked after he pushed me into the lagoon.  That was the first time in my life I felt betrayed and it hurt. It hurt badly.  If you think back, I am sure that you will remember a time when a friend turned on you.  How did it feel? 

Judas Iscariot was a friend of Jesus. He was one of the twelve picked to be His special friends, His Apostles.  These would be the men He entrusted his kingdom, his Church on earth to.  Judas was an important Apostle. He had charge of the money.  He saw to needed purchases and made sure that the charity people offered were put to good use.  He may have also kept a bit for himself, at least there were suspicions that he did so but Jesus did nothing when it was brought to His attention.  This emboldened Judas and he began to think that if he could get away with stealing from the common purse, then how could Jesus be the Messiah, the Son of God?  Judas could see the writing on the wall.  He could tell that the Pharisees were baiting Jesus and were just waiting for him to make a single wrong step. If Jesus were to be arrested, so would anyone close to him unless that person had a special relationship with the high priest.  Judas decided to sell Jesus to His enemies.  Of course, once Jesus was arrested he could keep the common purse because it was money belonging to a criminal.  Inwardly, Judas was delighted with his plan.  Outwardly he continued to pretend that he was a faithful follower of Jesus.  When the time came, he received all that he had hoped for. He got the donations, he got thirty pieces of silver, the cost of an unskilled slave, and he was immune from prosecution because he had turned Jesus in.  In the end, he realized his betrayal cost him a lot more than he had received.  He could have asked Jesus for forgiveness and he would be forgiven.  Instead, he gave in to despair and committed suicide.

We all like to think that had we been around in the time of Jesus we would have been faithful followers of Christ. Back then, being a Christian brought with it dangers of death. Would we have become martyrs for our faith of would we have offered incense to the emperor's statue? 

Today, in America, we do not risk death for being a follower of Christ. But are we afraid to show we are Christians?  The America we live in is hostile to Christian ways. We can lose friends and esteem if we point out things that are wrong.  But if we fail to do this we are just like Judas in that we are trying to make friends with those who are in power who may hate Jesus and His Church. We cannot choose to be an undercover Christian. To do so would be a betrayal that would make Judas's betrayal seem mild in comparison. 

As we approach the end of our Lenten journey, let us look at where we have missed the mark, where we have sinned.  Forgiveness is just one reception of the sacrament of Reconciliation away.  If you haven't been to it in years, so what?  Tell the priest and he will help you along.  Our sins are betrayals of the One that loves us. We can ignore them and sign on to follow the world or we can face them, confess them, and receive forgiveness.  We can be Judas who betrayed and died or we can be Peter who betrayed and lived.  The choice is up to us.