A reading of the holy gospel according to Matthew. Jesus said to his disciples, avoid the title rabbi. One among you is your teacher. The rest of you are learners. Do not call anyone on earth your father.
Only one is your father, the one in heaven. Avoid being called teachers. Only one is your teacher, the messiah. The greatest among you will be the one who serves the rest. Whoever exalts himself shall be humbled, but whoever humbles himself shall be exalted.
And this is the gospel of the Lord. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. I should like to go back to that first reading, Saint Paul's exhortation to the Corinthians. And one of the ideas that he stresses in today's reading is they must put Jesus Christ first and above all else, to seek him, not to lose him in the pursuit of other things which may be very good in themselves, and many of them necessary, and some of them compulsory if we wish to live in this world.
And this is the world in which we are living in some manner or other. So what Saint Paul is trying to drive home to these Corinthians is that is their obligation, above all else and despite everything else, to keep Jesus Christ first and foremost in their daily lives. This certainly, coincidentally, fits in with a commentary I saw last night on TV which depicted Mother Teresa of India with Mugbridge, the former editor of London Punch, the great humorous magazine. This is the first time I'd seen the film. I'm sure you all you know who Mother Teresa is.
She just received the Nobel Prize, Peace Prize. She's, I understand, from Albania, who has dedicated herself to the poorest of the poor of India, mainly around Calcutta. And in pursuing this work, other women have joined her and some men. Now any of you who saw that commentary, which simply consists of following her around, what might be well a normal day in which she and her sisters or her companions are ministering to the poorest of the poor of India. Now when you say the poorest of the poor of India, you have to see some of these people to realize what it means to be the poorest of the poor.
It's not people who are simply completely emaciated from lack of food. It's men and women who have lost their limbs through leprosy. Tiny babies who've been picked up because they've been thrown out and brought in even on the outside chance that they may have an hour or two to live. And in one episode, Mugridge turned to sister Teresa and said, you bring in these infants when you think they're only gonna have an hour or two or three hours to live, meaning why bother? And Mother Teresa turned to him and said, We certainly do, because we feel that if we can give just a few hours of loving tenderness to another human being, that is well worthwhile.
And that's what we are here for. They are not her exact words, but that's the substance of what she said. Now, the point I want to make is not to emphasize her work. I'm sure you're well acquainted with what she's doing. It's been highly publicized.
One of the main things that came out as I watched that hour long episode was her familiarity and her similarity, her likeness, with another great and good friend of mine, Mary Merrick. Miss Mary Merrick, as we always called her. She is the founder of the Christ Child Society. She established the first settlement house in The United States. She was among the first to establish camps.
She established a convalescent home. And many and many a talk I had with that heroic lady. As you know, at a very early age she suffered a spinal injury and for years could not even tolerate a pillow under her head. She had to lie perfectly flat And in that situation, she cultivated languages, wrote books, and had a care for those who needed help, the poor infants and children. That's what started her.
Now, what I want to emphasize is this, because this Mother Teresa brought this out, and Mary Merrick certainly emphasized this. Mugridge asked Mother Teresa, isn't it difficult for you to keep your spiritual aims above the need of all these thousands of people? Remember, you're talking in terms of thousands. And Mother Teresa turned to him and she said, It certainly is. She said, Our problem is not to become merely social workers.
Now here is the gist of the matter. It's the entire difference between philanthropy and Christian charity, or agape. And the the difference is total, total. Because what Mother Teresa is trying to do is to serve Jesus Christ. Because as he says, you don't see Jesus Christ.
You don't feel Jesus Christ. You don't visit Jesus Christ. He is invisible. He is intangible. But where do you see him?
Where do you feel him? Where do you hear him? Where do you see him in need? You see him in the poor. There he is.
Because he said, Whatever you do to these, you do to me. And so she is not involved in any philanthropic operation or project. She is not, as it were, she is not, in any ultimate sense, concerned with the alleviation of poverty or of hunger or of thirst or of sickness or of illness or disease. What she is interested in is Jesus Christ, simply and solely because she sees Jesus Christ in these unwanted poor. And as she said, there is medicine today for almost any deal we have, but there is no medicine to make a man or a woman who's completely thrown out of society feel wanted and loved.
That can only come from another human being. And that's what they are trying to do. They're not trying to solve any world pop world problems of malnutrition, hunger, illness, disease, and all of the rest of it. What she's concerned with is serving Jesus Christ and finding him in the poor. Now there's another thought I want to leave you with you because to me it's very important.
Her she has been dramatized. She has been taken over by the media and her work has been highly has been made known around the world. Her declaration against abortion before that very elegant assembly in Oslo certainly shocked many a person when she said before this gorgeous assembly that the main the main enemy of peace is abortion around the world. You can imagine how many of those people took that. But what I want to bring out is this.
What she is doing for the poor in the way of giving them tender, loving care, if it's just an hour before they die. It's just wonderful. It's absolutely the charity of Christ, meaning meaning the Christian idea, the agape of Christ. This is no mere sympathy and pity. This is no mere human empathy.
It is not philanthropic. It is the Christian love of one's fellow human being. Now here's my point. This same attitude must pervade our lives. Do you think about that?
Now, we can't all go out and try to find Jesus in the poor. After all, we should tell the poor to find Jesus in the rich. I've never heard that preached very often. But that's true. What we are called upon to see God in his son, Jesus Christ, in our neighbor.
But the point I want to leave with you is this. I want to make a put in a pitch for the anonymous. For the men and women whose names are never known, they may not be even put on a tombstone. This is literal fact. They may not even have a grave for themselves.
At the monastery of Solemn, they bury six monks in one grave. These are the anonymous ones. Men and women in their own ways of life, married and single, religious, doing the daily job. And now here's what I think of. The man in the laboratory, let us say, who manages to find a new breed of corn that can multiply the yield maybe by two or three, what has he done to alleviate suffering?
Now, that's what he's doing may be immensely more important than any number of people in the field trying to give food to the hungry, if he can multiply the yield of corn by two or three in a certain area of the world. There's the man, there's the woman, the teacher in the classroom, the woman in the kitchen, the man down in some little grubby job at an office or in a factory or in a machine shop or garage or something. We are all called upon to keep Jesus Christ before us. And this is not easy. This is not easy.
Someone said that nobody can look at a microscope at a tiny little mosquito and not see an elephant. And that's the way it is with life. We see and get absorbed in what's before us and it keeps growing and growing, and we can lose the ultimate. As Sister Theresa said, what we must not do is to mistake means for ends. Very important.
We must keep that end in view, which is Jesus Christ. Whatever we're doing, this is not easy. She herself said, we have a problem to do this. Each one of us has this problem. It's a daily struggle.
As I said, yes, let us know who we are and then whom we serve. If you answer positively in both institutes, you are on the right track. In the name of the father, the son, the holy spirit. Amen.