A reading of the holy gospel according to Saint Matthew. Jesus said to his disciples, if your brother should commit some wrong against you, go and point out his fault, but keep it between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. If he does not listen, however, summon another so that every case may stand on the word of two or three witnesses. If the man ignores them, refer it to the church.
That's church with a small c, it just means community. If he ignores even the community or the church, then treat him as you would a gentile or a tax collector. I assure you, whatever you declare bound on earth shall be bound in heaven. And whatever you declare loosed on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again, I tell you, if two of you join your voices on earth to pray for anything whatsoever, it shall be granted you by my father in heaven.
Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in their midst. And this is the gospel, the good news of the lord. In the name of the father, and of the son, and of the holy spirit. Amen. Yesterday we wore red vestments, feast of Saint Lawrence martyrdom, who goes way back to the earliest days of the church.
Today we have white vestments. The church is giving us a message with these garments. We're not putting on a show, it's not a parade, it's not the theater, it's not a stage. All of these physical accoutrements of church and music, of vestments of ritual, all of these things you see in themselves are worthless. They have worth insofar as they have meaning.
And they have meaning insofar as they bring a message of worship. If all of these accoutrements of what we call religion, if they do not further honest to God religion and true worship of God, they are not only worthless, they're hindrances, they're obstacles. They are the enemies of God. Now, the church today is celebrating the feast of Saint Claire. A lady who lived most of her life in the first half of the thirteenth century, born about December and died around 50 some, who was a personal friend of Francis of Assisi, who took in his message of poverty, and who tried to live it, and with whom other women, in the beginning her sisters and her mother became associated.
And so you have had the beginning of a new congregation of women called which came to be called the Poor Clairs. Because like Saint Francis of Assisi, the virtue that they held up as the most desirable or the one that they were going to pursue with the greatest intensity was poverty. Now I repeat, here you had sensible I guess they were sensible. If you can call saints sensible, because the world will call them fools. Just remember that.
Most of the saints, as far as the world goes, are fools. And so here we have Saint Francis of Assisi who had such a love of poverty, I repeat, a love of poverty, of being poor, of having absolutely nothing. I emphasize the word absolute because that was Francis of Assisi's ideal, to own, to call something your own absolutely ruled out. That's the reason that Francis of Assisi did not want his followers to become priests, because they would have to own a breviary. You'll say this is really nonsense.
Well, of course, a lot of his own followers thought it was nonsense because you had these conflicts about what the meaning of poverty and all that while Francis was still alive. But I'm only saying what he did, what Francis of a season. Today poverty is looked upon as the greatest possible evil that can happen to anybody. It's looked upon almost as the source of all evil. If you're poor, you're villainous.
If you're poor, you're a criminal. All crime, of course, is attributable to being poor, And it's taken as a self evident proposition. And yet here we had in in the end of the twelfth, mostly in the thirteenth century, here you have a man of Assisi, who was a man of wealth, a man of noble family who threw it all away, who would not own even a book, who did not want his followers to own or even a house. He meant they were to own simply nothing. And Saint Claire, also a woman of wealth, a woman of family, She she got this same crazy idea of poverty and tried to put it into effect.
She didn't live long, she only lived about fifty nine, sixty years. And about two Here's another point about her. At least two thirds of her life she spent in bed almost as an invalid. See, absolutely unproductive as far as See, here again, foolishness for the sake of Christ. As a productive person, she was completely unproductive.
She was not a positive She wasn't making any positive contributions to society. And if you don't make positive contributions to society, you're pretty worthless, you know. Whatever the contributions are. And of course the world defines that in its own terms, of course, which makes it very comfortable. Besides the pursuit of poverty, which they looked upon as an extremely high virtue, and I mean in the real McCoy, real poverty.
This lady, according to the New Catholic Encyclopedia, notice she's living in the first half of the thirteenth century. This lady had two great devotions, and one was to the mystical body of Christ, and the second was to the Eucharist. I devoted my well chosen remarks Sunday to the Eucharist, and I have not ceased to be talking about the mystical body of Christ, that we are all associated in the body of Christ in this world through baptism, and that that gives a special character to who we are and to everything we do. This opus dei idea, the work of the Lord. Nothing is trivial.
Nothing is insignificant. You spend two thirds of your life in bed as an invalid, socially unproductive. As a matter of fact, you're a great burden to your people around you. We put them in a nursing home or do something with them. Next thing you know, we'll have legalized euthanasia.
That's definitely in the books. But you see, a saint is a fool for Christ's sake. This is the thrust of Erasmus' folly. The first two the first three fourths of the book has to do with foolishness. But the last part of the book has to do with the serious question of being a fool for Christ's sake.
The great consolation I speaking for myself. The great consolation for me of being a Catholic is the fact that I know who I am, where I came from, and where I'm going. And I don't rest those convictions on just what I have discovered, or what I think, or what I hope, or what today in a good mood I like to think, or tomorrow in a foul mood I don't want to think. Because what I hope and believe and expect and live by, I have two nearly two thousand years of history behind me. I Saint Larch is one of us, and I hope I'm with him.
Saint Clair in the beginning of the thirteenth first half of the thirteenth century, a woman without any pretensions. She didn't leave any great writings. She didn't leave any great educational associations. She didn't leave any hospitals. All she did was spend almost her entire adult life in bed as an invalid.
Compare that to Saint Teresa of Avila, for example, who goes traipsing all over Spain reforming everybody. A whim, vigorous and vital woman. Compare the two, and yet that's the company we keep. I can look up at Saint Teresa of Avila just with as much allegiance and loyalty and acceptance and commitment, and sharing with her as I do a Clare or a Saint Lawrence or a Saint Matthew or any of the other saints straight down the centuries. We are all in the company of Jesus.
We are all in his mystical body. We don't let that phrase has disappeared. Why? Why? Is there any doctrine which Newman says which has more great more consolation than this great unanimity?
You talk about community. What community are you talking about? An assembly in a church on a Sunday morning, or an assembly in somebody's home of an evening mass that we got off on that kick? Is that the community we belong to? We are a community which transcends this earth and this life.
We we have a foot in temp We have a foot in time, but we have our other foot in eternity. And there we stand in that glorious company. A martyr, Lawrence, on one side, and today, a woman unknown to the world, considered a fool by the world. I spent nearly a week in their guesthouse. And while I was there, they there was a I guess he was a Norwegian, I'm not sure, or a Swede, who was writing who was devoting his life, not a Catholic, who was devoting his life to a biography of Saint Francis of his season.
And he told me, and he spoke perfect English, he said, If you want the spirit of Saint Francis, you will find it in the poor clairs. The name of the father and the son and holy spirit. Amen.