MOTHER THERESA’S SUPERIOR GENERAL’s Mass
Friday 26 June 2009

I answered the front door-bell one evening, many years ago in the parish where I was,
at a time when I was much younger, and there was Carol. She was a sorry soul,
bedraggled, often seen clip-clopping around town in her high-heels, on the arm of some poor bloke who couldn’t afford anybody else. Carol was a well known prostitute.
“Give us a quid, Father,” Carol said to me.
“No money,” said I firmly in reply. “But I’ll be glad to give you a cuppa and a sandwich.”
“Go on, Father, give us a quid.” And once again I refused and offered the usual hospitality.
“Look at you, Father, in that lovely black suit of yours.” And she eyed me up and down. “I bet that cost a penny or two.”
And then I said the kind of thing, that as soon as you’ve said it, you want the ground to open up and swallow you, but it’s too late, you can’t retract it. I don’t know why I said it, but I did.
“Now, Carol,” says I, “you know it’s not the suit that makes the man, it’s the man inside.”
“Oh, don’t I know it, Father. Don’t I know it. Go on, give us a quid.”
And so I did!

We often hear about liturgical abuses these days, but John Paul II frequently spoke of liturgical abuses in a different context, when he said:  “…it is unworthy of a Christian community to partake of the Lord’s Supper amid division and indifference towards the poor”. In another place he wrote: “St Paul vigorously reaffirms the impropriety of a Eucharistic celebration lacking charity expressed by practical sharing with the poor”. 

In other words, one of the greatest liturgical abuses is to take part in the Mass without it leading to deeper and more effective care for the poor and the needy.  I’m not sure, however, how I should have tried to care for Carol – because I’m pretty sure I couldn’t have given her what she wanted!  And yet, it is in such people as Carol, the poorest of the poor, that we are asked to recognize Christ.

This truth is particularly important as we continue our journey through life. The prophet Isaiah challenged those people of his own day who fasted, “hanging their head like a reed, lying down on sackcloth and ashes”, and yet mistreated the poor. Isaiah says:
“Is not this the sort of fast that pleases me:
it is the Lord who speaks –
to break unjust fetters
and undo the thongs of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and break every yoke,
to share your bread with the hungry
and shelter the homeless poor,
to clothe the person you see to be naked
and not to turn from your own kin?” (Is. 58:6-7).

It remains something of a challenge to relate that teaching to Carol and others like her who turn up on our doorsteps, to relate it to Guantanamo Bay, to Zimbabwe, to Iraq and Afghanistan, to quarrelsome members of our own family or community, to the 10% who occupy 90% of our time and energy. Yet, we are assured that the Lord will never ask us to do anything without giving us the strength to cope with the consequences.

For the Lord is teaching us:

1. that sharing the Bread of Life in Holy Communion and sharing our bread with the hungry go hand in hand.
2. that Adoration of Christ present in the Blessed Sacrament demands we reverence and serve his presence in one another, and especially the poor.
3. “Whatever we do for the least of his brothers and sisters, we do for him.” (Matt. 25:40).

Very early in his ministry, way back in 1980, John Paul reminded us that the Eucharist must be “a school of active love for neighbour”, and that “if our Eucharistic worship is authentic, it must make us grow in awareness of the dignity of each person”.  Realising that is what transforms us and transforms others.

When Pope Benedict was elected Pope he sold his battered, old, green VW.
New owner. Further sale. On the 3rd day it rose again!
Even in a secular world people still understand a reference to the Resurrection event.
Similarly, in the NY Twin Towers tragedy of 9/11. Father Mychael Judge, Chaplain to NY Fire Dept being carried out of rubble by colleagues. Iconic picture bringing a religious response and showing a religious sense, even from those with the hardest hearts.

St Paul once referred to the “Saints of Rome, Corinth, Thessalonia, Ephesus” and elsewhere. In a secular world, you are the Saints of Swansea, London, and elsewhere, wherever you provide a ministry of hospitality founded on prayer and generosity.  Unashamedly make Christ present to the world. Beat the waifs and strays who come your way with the love of the Lord. If anyone criticises you or opposes what you do, repeat to them the words of an Irish playwright, Oscar Wilde:
Love your enemies. Nothing will annoy them so much!