About two years ago a woman and two of her children started showing up at the Cathedral on Sunday mornings and would sit in the front plaza and beg for money. The Cathedral is located in an affluent, suburban neighborhood of Baltimore with limited access to public transportation, so this would happen occasionally but not very often. The second Sunday they were there I went out to talk to them while the Rector said Mass. I chatted with them for a brief time and when I turned around to walk back inside the Cathedral two of the ushers were huddled, waiting for me at the door. They had watched me go over to this mother and her young children and wanted to know what I said to them. For context, you should know that the ushers at the Cathedral take their ministry very seriously—so seriously, in fact, that they wear earpieces to communicate. I told them what I said: “I invited them to come inside for Mass.” The look on their faces indicated that that was not what they were expecting to hear. They assumed I had told this family that they could not sit outside the Cathedral and beg for money. But once it sank it, they realized that I had said and done the right thing.
These two ushers in particular are good men and I don’t hold their prejudice against them. In fact, I know that both regularly engage in acts of service to the poor. And, if I’m honest, they help the poor more than I do, and had the tables been turned, I could have just as easily been the one saying, “Get off my lawn.” At the same time, in that moment, I felt pretty good about doing what, it seems, Jesus would have done, and I made it a point to try and help this family. I learned that they were refugees from Belarus fleeing the war who had come into the United States through a student visa to Ireland. I tried to get her connected with an immigration lawyer in the parish, but by the time I had gotten the lawyer’s business card, the family stopped coming around. But I continued to think of them often, hoping they might show up again and praying that they found the help they needed.
Fast forward to this past Spring and I saw a family again outside the Cathedral after Mass. They looked like they could have been the same as before, but that seemed quite unlikely. On this particular Sunday, I had just celebrated the 11am Mass, with great solemnity, and was waiting for a family arrive to celebrate a baptism. With the time I had to spare, I went outside to talk to this family. They might not be the same people, I figured this would be a good, pastoral way to burn ten minutes. So, I went and introduced myself, and I was immediately asked for money—quite aggressively. I declined to give but tried to pivot to some personal questions in order to get to know them and learn their story. This woman was not interested. She again asked for money, and I, again, apologized that I was not able to help her. Finally, I had to walk away. Whereas the first time I was edified by my experience of talking to a beggar outside the Cathedral, this time I was bitter and regretted it.
I share these two experiences with you because the readings today introduce us to two poor widows, two women in need. Elijah clearly had a prophetic insight into the type of person the widow of Zarephath was and foreknew that God would work a miracle for her and her son. And the Lord Jesus, no doubt, would have known the heart of the widow in the treasury. But when we approach or are met by someone we don’t know, we lack both the prophetic insight and the Lord’s divine knowledge. We simply don’t know what we’re going to get. The experience could be like the first family I encountered outside the Cathedral or the second—and there’s no real way of knowing the difference.
I think there’s a beauty in that. The Lord sends us out into his field with a mission to be indiscrete. We are not supposed to sift the wheat from the chaff. We are called to approach others without prejudice and without certainty of whether we will be accepted or rejected by them. In this, we are invited to share in Jesus’ priesthood, which the Letter to the Hebrews continues to illustrate for us. Christ “once for all he has appeared at the end of the ages to take away sin by his sacrifice.” He knows every human heart he will save as only God can know them, and he suffers and dies for them—both those who would accept and those who would reject him. We, without that knowledge, are called to make the same sacrifice in union with Christ, knowing that his charity unspeakably surpasses our own. If he died for them, how can we not do the same?
There is a distinction between service and charity. One can perform acts of service for entirely self-interested reasons. Yet charity only begins where self-love ends. The Lord Jesus does not commission us to serve the least among us so that we might get something out of it. Much to the contrary, he sends us out into the world to die to ourselves so that others might live.
Let me say this: I look forward to getting around to that sometime. As I speak these words, I’m keenly aware of how little charity I actually perform. I recognize how much I desire to get out of helping others. It feels good to be needed. Yet the world already has a Savior. He invites us to share in his mission, to extend his salvation, not our own. So, let us do all for him and not for ourselves. Let us go out into the field to encounter anyone and everyone whom the Lord desires us to encounter without counting the cost, without weighing the benefit, without wondering whether it will go well or poorly. Let us trust that this is his work and that he will bless and multiply his work.
We may, in the end, stand to benefit from the good that we do. We hope to hear those blessed words, “Well done, my good and faithful servant. Come, share your master’s joy.” But we will stand no chance of receiving that invitation to glory if we do not now accept the invitation to the life of charity. For in the end, they are one and the same thing. If we desire to be united with God for ever in heaven, then we must strive to be united with God on earth; and in the person of Jesus Christ, God has allied himself not with the rich and the powerful, but with the poor and the lowly. “The fatherless and the widow he sustains, but the way of the wicked he thwarts. The LORD shall reign forever; your God, O Zion, through all generations. Alleluia.”
Homily preached November 10, 2024 at Mount St. Mary’s University