Word to the Wise
Thursday, February 16, 2012 - Thursday in the 6th Week in Ordinary Time
[Jas 2:1-9 and Mark 8:27-33]Show no partiality as you adhere to the faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ. For if a man with gold rings and fine clothes comes into your assembly, and a poor person with shabby clothes also comes in, and you pay attention to the one wearing the fine clothes and say, "Sit here, please," while you say to the poor one, "Stand there," or "Sit at my feet," have you not made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil designs?
I remember vividly a story told by my recently deceased Dominican brother, Archbishop Thomas Kelly, O.P., to the effect that when he became archbishop, he took up residence in the cathedral rectory. The cathedral is in a downtown area and many transient folks would come to the door seeking assistance with food and other necessities. The rector, perhaps under influence of others, moved the location of the assistance around to the back so as to remove the sight of the line of people on the sidewalk. Archbishop Kelly asked him to bring it back to the front, saying, "The problem is that no one wants to see the faces of the poor!"
Pope Paul VI declared in one of his encyclicals that one of the examples of the real presence of Christ is in the faces of the poor. The Letter of James today directly addresses the all too common human tendency to give precedence to "the better sort of person." Do we ever mention that tendency when we seek God's mercy in the Sacrament of Reconciliation? Do we turn our face from the face of Christ? Oh, those are very uncomfortable questions! If we are looking for something to do for Lent, perhaps a change of heart about the faces of the poor will do more for us as a Christian than giving up chocolate or martinis! AMEN