2/6/08:
"Ash Wednesday" - Fr. Brian Prunty, O. Praem.
You probably noticed that Tom read the Beatitudes from last Sunday’s Gospel. The regular Ash Wednesday gospel will be heard in today’s Mass.
This year, I’d like to suggest a slightly different path for our Lenten journey. Perhaps a green journey.
I don’t know if anyone short of Jesus Christ would have ever uttered the Beatitudes. It doesn’t make much sense to say that the poor, the sad, the trampled, the abused and the insulted are blessed.
No way are such people favored or happy or even vaguely doing well. Nor are those with tender hearts and peaceful intentions in the obviously blessed zone! For Jesus to call life’s losers the “happy ones” is not a conclusion at which anybody with eyes to see would arrive.
The beatitudes are comforting words to anyone who fits the job description of “poor in spirit.” In different hours and seasons of our lives, we might squeeze into that category. Most of us in this country are prosperous—in spirit as in every other aspect of our situation. That is a blessing, but it comes with a corresponding obligation that we may take too lightly.
God created the goods of this earth for the use of ALL humanity. The world’s goods are ordered in the direction of every human being. The beatitudes suggest that we the prosperous should use the world’s goods with moderation, reserving the better part for guests, for the sick and the poor—not the left-overs, but the BETTER part of our resources is to be used for the stranger, the sick, and the poor.
During my second year at our Norbertine Hospital at Santa Clotilde on the banks of the Napo River (one of the grand tributaries to the mighty Amazon) we had a medical emergency that demonstrates this interpretation of placing the beatitudes at the beginning of the Lenten journey.
On that Sunday, the last Sunday of ordinary time before Lent, Sister Nora and I went up river in our fast boat toward the Equatorial border to spend the week visiting every pueblo in order to vaccinate the children and to hold a quick clinic for the adults. We examined and vaccinated the children; many of them for the first time and told some parents they should visit us in our hospital as soon as possible because of diseases that needed immediate attention. Often we finished by exchanging the stethoscope for a stole and Nora and I baptized the babies, married their folks and on this occasion arrived in time to bury the chief of one of the pueblos.
We met SEGUNDO on this visit in a pueblo called Plata Cruz and asked his mother, the family leader, to bring Segundo to the hospital. I was not sure of the extent of his sickness, but I knew it was serious and might be terminal. Segundo was 10 years old and the oldest of their five children. Two weeks latter, Segundo and his entire family moved into the hospital at Santa Clotilde. One day of primitive tests (that’s all we had) indicated that Segundo had irreversible kidney failure, i.e. irreversible in the third world of the Amazon Jungle. Dialysis was simply out of the question---we did not have a dialysis machine nor x-ray machines—those require long term electricity. Distance, interdependent family, local resources and many other circumstances made that impossible.
Blessed are the meek for they will inherit the land; blessed are they who huger and thirst for justice, for they will be satisfied; blessed are the pure in spirit. Segundo is bloated with the steroids that we must use in the absence of dialysis.
On Holy Saturday night I was on call in the hospital. Between the hospital and the church was a huge soccer field and it was the tradition to have the great Easter Fire in the center of this cement field. From Segundo’s room you could see the huge 20 foot pillar of fire that began the great Vigil Service. I moved his bed so that he could see and then sat with him in his unbelievable pain. In the middle of the vigil fire ceremony in which we recall God’s mercy and deliverance, Segundo said just audibly, “Senor, ten piedad” (Lord have mercy). His eyes glistened in the reflection of the Vigil fire. He whispered “gracias” and died.
Lent invites us into the practice of self giving. Lent invites us into the mind set that the worlds goods are ordered in the direction of everyone. Again, we are encouraged to use the world’s goods with moderation, reserving the better part for out guests, for the sick and the poor, for the imprisoned, for the merciful, for those who suffer injustice and for the peacemakers (they are called the children of God.)
This lent we are encouraged to take the journey of and with Jesus. This journey requires a lot more than just weight loss, giving up candy, cigarettes and alcohol. That is a healthy focus on the self but the church calls us to a concern for all of creation.
We are keepers of our brothers and sisters. Ultimately, this “keeping” means respecting the great resources of the earth; the resources’ that belong to all of us…the resources that God promised to all of his people, especially the poor.
Today, with the symbol of ashes so prominently displayed on our foreheads we are visibly reminded of the Call Jesus gives us this morning: Take care of my brothers and sisters—take care of my sisters and brothers (AND WE MUST BEGIN HERE AT HOME IN THE ST. NORBERT COMMUNITY). SENOR, TEN PIEDAD.
