Friends,
in today’s Gospel, Jesus gives us this extraordinary command to
consider the weakest and most vulnerable in our society: "When you hold a
banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind." This is
one of his central concerns throughout the Gospels. Aliens, strangers,
foreigners, widows, orphans, the poor—if these weak
people are ignored, God will become angry.
God’s
passion not only runs right through the biblical tradition, but it
comes roaring up into the social teaching of the Catholic Church: "If
you have two coats in your closet, one belongs to you; the other belongs
to the man who has no coat."
Let us not forget the poor and marginalized today.
Monday of the Thirty-first Week in Ordinary Time
Lectionary: 485
Brothers and sisters:
If there is any encouragement in Christ,
any solace in love,
any participation in the Spirit,
any compassion and mercy,
complete my joy by being of the same mind, with the same love,
united in heart, thinking one thing.
Do nothing out of selfishness or out of vainglory;
rather, humbly regard others as more important than yourselves,
each looking out not for his own interests,
but also everyone for those of others.
On a sabbath Jesus went to dine
at the home of one of the leading Pharisees.
He said to the host who invited him,
"When you hold a lunch or a dinner,
do not invite your friends or your brothers or sisters
or your relatives or your wealthy neighbors,
in case they may invite you back and you have repayment.
Rather, when you hold a banquet,
invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind;
blessed indeed will you be because of their inability to repay yo
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