A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Matthew. The disciples came up to Jesus with this question. Who is the greatest importance in the kingdom of God? Jesus called a little child over and stood the child in their midst and then said to them, I assure you, unless you change and become like little children, you will not enter the kingdom of god. Whoever makes himself lowly, becoming like this child is of greatest importance in that heavenly reign.
Whoever welcomes one such child for my sake welcomes me. See that you never despise one of these little ones. I assure you, there are angels in heaven constantly behold my heavenly father's face. Now what is your thought on this? A man owns a 100 sheep.
One of them wanders away. Will he not leave the 99 out in the hills and go in search of the stray? If he succeeds in finding it, believe me, he is happier about this one than about the 99 that did not wander away. Just so, it is no part of your heavenly father's plan that a single one of these little ones shall ever come to grief, and this is the gospel of the lord. The name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen.
In yesterday's office, the breviary for yesterday, the feast of Saint Lawrence, there was a reading from Saint Augustine. Now notice this. Here I am in Garrett Park in 1981, quoting Saint Augustine who died in 04/30, who was writing about saint Lawrence who suffered his martyrdom in the third century about February. You see the company we keep. The centuries disappear.
We are all one. Now referring to the martyrdom of Saint Lawrence, which of now remember Saint Lawrence was martyred about '2 about February. We're not sure of that. We're sure he's martyred. He was a very popular figure and well known to Saint Augustine, and Saint Augustine was born in March, a hundred years later.
And, in remarking upon this martyrdom of Saint Lawrence, Augustine this is Augustine of Hippo, of course. Augustine stresses that with the martyrdom of the martyrs, that is after these holy men and women have suffered martyrdom, they did not destroy the bridge to god's kingdom. Now that's a they're Augustine's own words in English, of course, and he wasn't too good at English. And then Augustine goes on within several following sentences to point out that virgins are called, widow and widowers are called to the kingdom of god. And then he goes on to say, everybody is called to the kingdom of god.
And how we get there varies, but we're all called to the same goal. Now today, we have this feast of Saint Claire of Assisi, and I I don't know much about her, but I know of something about a visit and about a week I spent in her house that is in the convent she founded in Assisi. They had a hospice there, and in 1934, I visited and stayed there for about a week in Assisi. And one of the my fellow guests, as a matter of fact, he was almost a permanent resident, was doctor Jergensen, the man who wrote one of the most outstanding biographies of, Saint Francis of Assisi. He was not a Catholic, but he was devoting his life to this work of researching and writing about Saint Francis of Assisi.
So I was in good companionship with him, and I don't know what companionship he was in with me, but we had a pleasant time. Now the memory of Saint Clair was very much alive there. And doctor Jurgensen said, he said, if you want the true spirit of Saint Francis of Assisi, you'll find it in this house. Of course, there was a big basilica over the tomb of Saint Francis, and here was the tomb of Saint Francis which is which holds his remains. And there's a big story to that, you know, how they disappeared because people were trying to steal them.
And, you know, it's a great big deal. Whereas there's a special or was, this is the 1934, a very special atmosphere around this house of Saint Clair of Assisi. As far as I can make out, she wasn't famous for anything. For about she only lived 2015 about fifty nine years, from about November to December. And for twenty five or twenty six years, that is the last twenty five or twenty six years of her life, she spent in bed as an invalid.
She was very specially dedicated to poverty. She she received a special indulgence from the holy see to practice poverty. It was considered a privilege to practice poverty. Now that's striking. I'm using the very words that the holy see conceded her to her as a a young girl, the privilege of practicing poverty.
Now as you know, Saint Francis of Assisi, this was his overwhelming goal, to own absolutely nothing. Now I mean absolutely nothing, not even as the religious orders today own things. He didn't want any any parts of that. Of course, this is what called caused a great deal of conflict because you can't live this way. But, anyway, he tried it.
And she became a follower of his at when she was only 17 or 18 years old. And as far as I can make out from what I've read, she wasn't as spectacular about anything, and yet she was canonized as a saint within a few years after her death. And her body has remained uncontaminated by decay. So this lady, has a special meaning, I think, for all of us. For all of us.
You see, the idea of poverty isn't to be poor. It's to be rich in Jesus Christ. Never forget that. No negative can be a virtue. A negative can't be a virtue because by definition, a negative is a nothing.
And nothing can't be a virtue because you can't pursue a nothing. You have to pursue a something. So the mere negation of the world's goods, plenty of people do that. They have no choice. There's no particular merit in that.
As a matter of fact, in this country and many parts of the world, we are overwhelmingly dedicated to the trying to get rid of it, to eliminate poverty. That's the great word, to eliminate poverty. Then you're gonna make people better, and you're gonna make them good. You're gonna make them fine citizens. Oh, this is a pipe dream.
It doesn't work. But, anyway, that's what we're trying to do. We are going to eliminate poverty. We're gonna make everybody have a income of I don't know how much. Nobody tells you where you're going to get it.
And you see so there today, you just think what we what we've read in this gospel from our lord today. Today, we are overwhelmingly dedicated to what we call the good and comfortable life, which we which we translate in terms of comfort, physical human animal comfort, having things. Now let me hasten that. There is nothing wrong in having things. What is absolutely wrong is things having us.
That's the evil. That's the dog being the master of the man. That's food being master of the man or the woman, and we call it butney. Now the whole idea of poverty as opposed to being poor, that is a vow of poverty, isn't to empty yourself to get nothing, but it's to empty yourself to get everything, namely god. Now in this world, as god made this world, we didn't make it in a certain sense.
In another sense, we do make it. God has made us to need things, and we have to pursue those things in the way that we can to get them. This is common sense. You can't avoid it. Not everyone is called to be a Saint Francis of Assisi.
As a matter of fact, you can't be a Francis of Assisi. He proved you can't do it. That is his ideal was proved unworkable within a few years of his own lifetime. This is what caused great dissension within the order. Saint Francis didn't become a priest because he didn't wanna even own a breviere.
Absolute poverty. But I insist again, the idea of giving up things wasn't simply to empty yourself and have nothing. It was to empty yourself to have god, which is a very different thing from being just plain poor and, damning it to hell every minute and resenting it. And so this good lady, Saint Claire of a season, she was she was less spectacular than the little flower. She didn't write a biography.
She just lived a life dedicated to god. That's what she did. She did what she's what seemed to her to be the thing that needed doing at the time, beginning of the thirteenth century. She saw a need. She saw a need to for people to return to god.
She was a great advocate of the mystical body of Christ. Notice this is the beginning of the thirteenth century. Today, we you hear very little about the mystical body of Christ. You hear a lot about community. It's the mystical body of Christ that is the church.
Every time I say mass where we say where we pray that the church prays for me, think of what you're saying. You're talking about the church triumphant in heaven. You're talking about the church suffering in purgatory, and you're talking about the church in the first line of battle in this life. That's the mystical body of Christ, all of it, and we are part of it. Saint Augustine in the fourth century writing about Saint Lawrence, and I here, I am quoting him in in reference to Saint Claire of the thirteenth century in 1981.
There you have it. We have a picture of the church of Jesus Christ that and think of this. You have these men and women. We are all the bridge was not destroyed behind the last martyr, says Saint Augustine. We all have to go to the kingdom of god.
We have no other goal. We get there by various means, but we are going there together. We are one. The church triumphant, the church militant, and the church suffering. And when the going gets tough, when you think you're isolated, when your troubles seem to crush you, when the future seems awfully dark, I mean dark, remember there are plenty of people for whom tomorrow seems digit.
They don't know where to turn. Even god seems to be remote. This is commonplace. This is what happens. When you need him most, he's not there.
This is commonplace. Where was god when Christ on the cross says, my god, my god, why have you abandoned me? Think of that. So that feeling of abandonment isn't uniquely yours or mine. It's not peculiar to us.
It is a commonplace thing. But we then is when we have to realize we are not alone. We are not isolated. We are part of this great body. And in convents and monasteries over the world, missionaries all over, humble priests, unknown religious, unknown anonymous men and women, married and single, all over the world at one.
The church, let us be one with them. In the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit. Amen.