Not to long ago I was vacuuming my car at the Car wash by Kensington Market. I was working pretty hard because it hadn’t been done for a while.
I was also rushing because my minutes were clicking away. All of a sudden someone started calling me repeatedly Sir are you Robert from the St. Paul?
I looked up and the man was walking toward me .
Are you Robert from St. Paul’s he said again and I said yep that’s me…
He said I saw you at a funeral and I just want you to know that I used to go to St. Paul’s but I gave up on religion, however I like the pope.
I didn’t really understand the point he was making so I asked him...
You gave up your religion but you like the pope?
Yep, he said, I like him because he’s humble and sometimes I even listen to what he has to say.
I thanked him for saying hello and assured him the door was always open at St. Paul. Then I went to find more quarters.
When I was stationed in Assisi I walked out of the Church and there was a man there that looked really familiar.
I went up to him and said sir you look so familiar to me have we met before? He said I’m Martin Sheen. and when I didn’t recognized the name he simply said I’ve done some acting maybe you saw a commercial or two that I made.
He was so simple and welcoming he had come to Assisi to learn about St. Francis and pray for peace..
He asked me lots of questions about St. Francis and the Basilica.
A couple of days later there was a rerun of the West Wing in italian on television and I realized that I had been talking to President Bartlett.
If there ever was a virtue that is counter cultural it’s humility.
It is so counter cultural that sometimes people can’t believe their eyes when they see someone important being humble.
The world teaches us to always strive to be number one.
It teaches us to get all the recognition we can and then want more.
We are encouraged not only share our gifts with others butto make sure everyone knows we’re are sharing our gifts.
When a proud person does something good, their love is not free they expect to get paid with recognition and honor.
When you think about it Our Holy Father hasn’t changed anything that we believe as Catholics.. rather, he simply speaks and lives in a gentle and humble way.
I can’t remember in recent history when the leader of our church has received more positive press and recognition.
All of us have a lot to learn from people like Pope Francis and Martin Sheen.
At this Liturgy we celebrate the most significant moment of all time because at this mass and every mass we enter into the mystery of God’s humility,
the all good, all loving, all powerful, all just God who entered into our lives through the incarnation and sacrificed himself on the Cross for our sins . Only radical love could be this humble.
A later on in this liturgy we will have the chance to receive our humble lord in the sacrament of his Body and Blood
God, the creator of the universe, will change some humble bread and wine into his very body and blood and share himself with all of us the good the bad and the indifferent.
The message of today’s Gospel is pure and simple
We, we as a church have to be more humble more loving more gentle, We can’t change the truths that God has give to us but we can and must proclaim with generous and gentle and loving lives.
All of us should strive to be just a little bit more humble, never seeking the place of honor or recognition.
May we love love each other expecting nothing in return.
May our love always be free seeking nothing in return and may our lives be humble.
Amen
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