BLESSED ARE THEY

As I travel the country preaching to raise funds for the poor, on behalf of Food for the Poor, I like to begin with a story. One of my favorites is:

A woman is driving down a two lane highway when she sees a car approaching from the opposite direction. As the two cars cross, the man in the other car yells out at her, “FAT COW!” She immediately yells back, “PIG!!!” She is feeling so good about herself and her quick response when the road takes a turn. As she makes that turn, she collides into a fat cow sitting in the middle of the road. The story has a moral, and the moral is: Women never seem to understand what men are trying to say. And all too often WE fail to grasp what God is saying to us.

Yesterday, on the Feast of All Saints, we heard the Gospel words, “Blessed are they [happy are they…holy are they….saints are they] who are poor in spirit, for theirs IS [not will be] the kingdom of heaven.” We all long for happiness, for an encounter with God, for a permanent place in God’s holy presence. WE WANT TO BE SAINTS. And in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus gives US the real secret, unlike the book by that title that was highly popular just a year or two ago. Next Sunday, Jesus will reinforce this message with the story of The Widow’s Mite.

Jesus says, open your heart and feel my hunger in your sisters and brothers. Open your heart and feel my hunger in you. Open your heart if you truly want to encounter real happiness…if you want to encounter me…if you want to be a saint. I often tell folks, there’s one sure test where we can be sure we are opening our heart – if we open our checkbook. Sounds trite, but it’s the truth. There’s a poem by a 15th century mystic which says,

To give Him my clay to shape as he desires,
Well, that’s one thing that can be so exciting.
But if my silks and jewels are at risk,
That’s a whole different matter that causes me to ask,
Is all this God stuff for real?

That’s the question. How real is God for us? How badly do we want to encounter God? What is it worth to us? How much are we willing to give to see God in the poor, to encounter the Holy in ourselves?

All too often, even among the good, we go to Mass, warm the pew, and leave just as hungry, just as empty as when we walked in. The great obstacle for most, who are indeed good, is not the challenge between good and bad. It is the battle between the good and the best. We hear Jesus’ words, but we still hold back.

That’s why I love my ministry. Like St. Anthony Mary Claret, our holy founder, I go from town to town to awaken the best in folks. He preaching to countless multitudes, I to over 10,000 just this past month and some 200,000 in two years plus. He traversed rivers and mountains on foot and horseback, I in trains and planes. He battled the elements: driving rain or blistering heat, I inch my way through security, waiting for flights that are delayed only to later be packed in like a sardine. Padre Claret was widely known for his fiery preaching and long confession lines, I often have eight or more Masses each weekend (12 at a parish in New York next March). Both leaving home before the Sun has graced us with light, and not resting till it has long since disappeared again. Both with a fire within, tired and drained by the long hours, blessed and energized by the people, and their gratefulness. Both in love with our call.

I generally share stories of children who have touched my heart. It is these stories that help open hearts. Children who hustle in the streets of Guatemala, perhaps shining shoes even though they themselves may go barefoot, or if they have shoes, they are usually much bigger than their little feet, and mismatched to boot. Or those in Managua, Nicaragua, living on a huge mountain of garbage with a stench so foul one cannot breathe. They call it La Chureca, el Gran Basurero (the Great City Dump). Still, there they are scrounging for food in the stinking garbage. Or kids in Cite Soleil (City of the Sun) in Haiti, who live in shanties of rusted metal, with neither water nor electricity, and who are given mud cakes to eat when their stomachs begin to grumble.

I have been blessed to see many rise to the challenge. I was helping in the missions in Jamaica during Holy Week, where a little girl fascinated by my grey hair was trying to braid it, when I received an e-mail from someone in Stillwater, Oklahoma, who said, “Father, I heard you speak and your words touched my heart. My wife and I have been praying about it, and we are sending $50,000 to Food for the Poor.” I thought, WOW, talk about a Christmas and Easter story rapped up into one. Not just because of the generous gift, but the transformation that must have taken place in this beautiful couple.

A priceless lesson for me has been that the measure of our quest to be saints is NOT in how much we give but how much we hold back. I have seen people like the Poor Widow give their all. I was in Grafton, North Dakota, speaking to some Mexican campesinos (farm workers)after Mass, asking about their situation. They said, “Padre, we have worked only five or six days all summer. If the situation does not improve in the fall during the harvest, we don’t know how we are going to survive.” Then they reached into their pockets and gave me whatever they had “for the poor”. A young Guatemalan couple in Conway, South Carolina, just barely arrived and struggling to make ends meet, came to me after Mass with tears in their eyes and gave me a new $100 bill “for the children”. At the Shrine of the Sacred Heart in Washington, D.C., an elderly woman from Argentina, said, “Padrecito, I have nothing. I am homeless. But I want to give you these $5 for the poor.” My immediate reaction was – No way. You need it. But before I could open my mouth, it was as if Holy Wisdom took over and said, “Yes. Everyone deserves the right to encounter my Holy Presence through their generosity.” I hugged her and kissed her. And I thanked her.

Blest are they…and blessed am I to walk among these saints.