1st Reading: Isaiah 66: 18 – 21
2nd Reading: Hebrews 12: 5-7, 11-13
Gospel: Luke 13: 22 – 30
Homily: Joe Nangle OFM
(During our) Planning – (we wrestled with) some ultimate questions about Heaven/Hell, Salvation, Redemption, God’s judgement. We reached a kind of negative consensus – most of these questions remain with God. Who can know the mind of God? God’s very name is mercy!
Closer to home we decided on the theme based on Isaiah, “I come to gather nations of every language…” and Luke, “They will come from the East and the West, the North and the South and sit at the table of God’s kingdom.” Therefore (today’s theme): How Open are Our Doors? It lends itself to a serious examination of conscience.
Like most every similar questions there are three levels:
First, the personal – as a person of White Privilege do I recognize the clamor of “the others” – Blacks, Latinos, Asians Middle Easterners – even when it makes me (feel) uncomfortable and perhaps unjustly criticized?
Second, the communal – in my circle of friends and communities the same question: How Open are Our Doors? It often provokes heated arguments and even broken relationships.
Finally, the national level. Much of the deep and dangerous divisions in our nation today flow from a sense of defensiveness viz a viz “those people.” It is ultimately being gripped by fear, feelings of terror, that we are going to be overrun – displaced by “those people.”
And yet our experience is telling us that “those people” bring a vitality and newness to this aging American society. My own experience with the Latino Community at Our Lady Queen of Peace Parish: Their sense of community at every level; their different expressions of religiosity (some not necessarily to our taste perhaps); a work ethic – not only willingness to work very hard but the capabilities they bring to their work; family (I think most of them would reject placing their elderly in a “facility”), capacity for celebration – music, dance; gratitude to the U.S. despite horror stories about their crossing and discrimination here.
PAX has had the benefit of “Others” over the years. Perhaps we’ve become accustomed and loved them; we are one with them in this Community: Rosa, Maria Teresa and Theo, the Rudenko family, Luis and Amalia, Caridad. Think of what they have brought to PAX and to our American society! Yet it is just such wonderful people that are so feared and discriminated against in many parts of our country today.
There was a book written some years ago by a Harvard professor: (its) thesis (is) that all empires which could not assimilate immigrants failed. She mentioned the Roman Empire, Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, British Empires – all failing because they failed to receive and take advantage of the gifts being offered by immigrants.
By way of conclusion – a story (stories are always so helpful in making the point. Some days ago, I went to Costco to pick up a hearing aid which had been repaired. I left the car quite a distance from the store in order to get some exercise going and coming. On departure, I completely forgot where I had parked in that huge lot and walked back and forth for quite a while looking for it. Finally, pretty worn out, I asked a man who was packing his car if he could help me find mine. He said he would go to find the officials who are assigned to such situations, but returned saying that none of them was to be found. But he said he himself would go on foot looking for my car and just as the officials arrived to help, this Good Samaritan returned telling me he had found it. The man who was definitely from an African country, obviously a recent immigrant to the U.S. and when I tried to thank him for helping this old white American he simply replied, “that’s what you do, isn’t it?”