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Homilies | Sunday, November 23, 2014

The greatest is the one who serves

Archbishop Wenski's homily at Miami-Dade ThanksForGiving Mass

Archbishop Thomas Wenski preached this homily at the third annual Thanks4Giving Mass in Miami-Dade County, celebrated Nov. 23 at St. Mary Cathedral, Miami.

This Sunday, the last Sunday of the Church’s liturgical year, celebrates Christ the King. Of course, to say that Jesus is King requires some explanation. Since most of us have no direct experience with kings, our idea of a king is often taken from history books or fairy tales – and often such kings are presented as being sometimes vain or fickle, sometimes cruel and overbearing, and even the best of them usually took more from their subjects than they gave. Christ indeed is a King – if he does not rule over us then the principalities and powers of this world will. But he is not like any of those kings that the world has known. His crown is not made up of precious stones but of prickly thorns – and his throne is the cross.

If Jesus is King, he is a shepherd king – one who lays down his life for his sheep. We heard him speak in the first reading through the mouth of his prophet, Ezekiel: “I myself will pasture my sheep. The lost I will seek out, the strayed I will bring back, the injured I will bind up, the sick I will heal…”

The Gospel today reminds us that this shepherd king shall return at the end of time to judge us. Judgment Day will be something like taking a final exam – but Jesus in today’s Gospel parable has told us what’s going to be on the test.

For Jesus, our King, to rule is to serve – and in baptism he has made us sharers in his royal dignity, and thus the greatest is the one who serves.

And the parable makes clear: God will judge us on how we model ourselves on Jesus’s own way of acting: in other words, on how we serve the “least of his brethren.”

In the Gospel parable, those he called “Blessed by my father” are those who served: that is, those who clothed the naked, fed the hungry, gave drink to the thirsty, visited the prisoner, and welcomed the stranger.

Jesus wants us to understand that where the poor and their needs are acknowledged, he himself is acknowledged. “Whatever you do for these the least of my brethren you do to me.” In saying this, Jesus implies that we won’t have to wait for the end of time to meet our judge: We have already met him– we have met him hidden in the often times distressful disguise of the poor.

During these days leading up to Thanksgiving, many of our parishes have been involved in preparing and distributing “Thanksgiving” baskets to the poor and needy of our community. Today’s second collection also will go to support the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, through which the Catholic Church in the United States supports efforts that address the root causes of poverty in our nation.

In these and in so many other ways we seek to serve Jesus present among “the least, the last and the lost” –– in modeling Jesus’ own way of acting we become, as the slogan of our Archdiocesan Synod said, “disciples in faith” and “missionaries of hope” and, in this way, we build up the Church as a community of mercy.

And if Thursday is Thanksgiving Day, today is our “Thanks-for-Giving Day. As Archbishop I want to recognize you – all of you – for your helping to make our Church here in South Florida a community of mercy through the ABCD, the Archbishop’s Charities and Development campaign.

The ABCD helps supports the many ministries of the Catholic Church in the three counties of our Archdiocese – these ministries represent concrete ways in which we perform what are called the spiritual and corporal works of mercy. Through your support of the ABCD you help our Catholic Church here in South Florida reach out to those brothers and sisters Jesus speaks about in today’s Gospel.

At a time when many would want to write off the Church as irrelevant and, in view of the ascendant secularism of our age, would argue that living the faith coherently is not worth the investment of your time, talent or your treasure, you still assume the risks of faithful discipleship and invest in the mission of your Church.

Before we gather with our families on Thanksgiving Day, and before Black Friday, we gather here to celebrate the Eucharist which is our “thanksgiving” for Jesus’ gift of himself on Good Friday – a gift that has brought joy and hope, light and peace, and has given our lives a new direction.

At the Second Vatican Council 50 years ago, the bishops reminded us that the way for anyone to find fulfillment, the way for anyone to realize himself or herself, the way to become the people that God meant us to be, is found not through self-seeking or self-assertion but rather through the sincere gift of ourselves to God and to our neighbor. It is through this sincere gift of ourselves that we hope to hear Jesus also tell us, in the words of today’s Gospel: “Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.”

And for all of you who have done this – year after year – by contributing to the ABCD, I say again: “Thanks-for-giving.”

 

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